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Michael J. Friedel, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist, Visiting and Adjunct Professor

email: mfriedel@usgs.gov; telephone: 303.236.7790

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Oveview: I have 22 years of domestic and international experience leading and participating on teams that characterize, monitor, and model the ecological, geophysical, and water-resource response to natural and anthropogenic stresses. Because of limited information and nonuniqueness in these systems, I personally develop and apply methods to better conceptualize, parameterize, and calibrate models. I also investigate and quantify the associated model and prediction uncertainty in analytical and numerical models. In addition to collaborative problem solving, I enjoy writing technical articles, teaching university courses, providing workshops, and mentoring students. Curriculum Vitae

Work experience: U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Bureau of Mines, various universities, and international organizations.

Research experience: development and application of numerical models; improved estimation (or calibration), regularization, and validation approaches; and techniques to quantify model and predictive uncertainty.

Teaching experience: Colorado college, Hohai University, State University of Campinas, University of Brasilia, University of Centroamericana, University of Colorado, University of Kuopio; and various workshops

International experience: Argentina, Brazil, China, El Salvador, Finland, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Palestine, Romania, Turkey, European Union, Middle East Peace Process, NATO security

Post-doc opportuntity with USGS (contact me by email)

Recognized expertise:

Flow and transport methods and modeling (heat, solute, reactive; surface water, ground water, unsaturated zone)
Flood methods and modeling (water, sediment, debris; confined, unconfined, ungaged)
Geophysical methods and modeling
Hazard and risk evaluation
Inverse methods (fitting, calibration, uncertainty)
Model development (analytical, numerical, stochastic)
Teaching (seminars, workshops, courses)
Team management (interdisciplinary, international)
Uncertainty analysis (model and prediction)
Water resource quantity and quality
Studies - geotechnical, geostatistics, geophysics, hydrology, hydrogeology, unsaturated zone

Current research/studies:

Estimating probable amounts of metals in undiscovered deposits

Estimating uncertainty in multicomponent reactive transport

Estimating uncertainty in predictive debris flow equations

Evaluating calibration and prediction methodologies for dual permeable flow and transport in variably saturated media

Efficacy of reactive barriers to mitigation mine tailings drainage

Hypothesis testing for borehole leakage by inverse methods

Inversion of Airborne EM to identify water bearing regions

Inverse EM applications for identifying unexploded ordinance

Joint inversion of geophysical and groundwater data and models

Redistribution of sediment following flooding in Romania

Writing 3 chapters for 2nd edition of Unsaturated Zone Hydrology for Scientists and Engineers