Miguel A. Medina

Profesor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Dr. Medina earned a Ph.D. degree in water resources and environmental engineering sciences from the University of Florida in 1976 and joined the Duke faculty thereafter. Dr. Medina is Director of the International Honors Program of the Pratt School of Engineering. He has been a registered Professional Hydrologist, American Institute of Hydrology (Minnesota), since 1983, and its current President-Elect. Dr. Medina is Associate Editor of the Journal of Hydrologic Engineering.

Professor Medina has conducted funded research in hydrologic and water quality mathematical modeling for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Water Research and Technology, the North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute, the State of North Carolina, the U.S. Army Waterways Experiment Station, the Naval Oceanographic Office, the U.S. Air Force, DuPont Engineering, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy in joint ventures with Luna Innovations. His current research focuses on contaminant transport hydrology, specifically modeling flow and mass transport across surface/subsurface interfaces and interactions. The results of his research are reported in such journals as Water Resources Research, Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Journal of Hydrology, Hydrosoft, Advances in Water Resources, Ground Water, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Computation, Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Computing in Civil Engineering, Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, Desalination, Journal of Environmental Engineering, Hydrological Science and Technology, and Environmental Health Perspectives.

He was selected a Fulbright Scholar for 1984 at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He conducted post-graduate intensive courses on urban hydrology for UNESCO in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Panama in 1985 and 1986. In 1987, he was awarded an NSF travel grant to establish links between U.S. and Argentine hydrologists and water professionals. He was named External Evaluator of the UNESCO International Hydrological Programme from 2002 to 2003. He was selected the Lead Evaluator in 2007 of the UNESCO World Water Assessment Program.

Professor Medina is a former President of the Universities Council on Water Resources, Inc., and the North Carolina Section of the American Water Resources Association. He is a consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization, the Research Triangle Institute of North Carolina, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Pan American Health Organization, the Ministries of Water Resources in Venezuela and Spain, the Technical Advisory Service for Attorneys, and other private enterprises. He is a former Chairman of the International Technical Advisory Committee of the International Ground Water Modeling Center (Colorado School of Mines, and Delft, The Netherlands). In 1989, the Governor of North Carolina appointed Dr. Medina to the Environmental Management Commission.

Appointments and Affiliations

  • Profesor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Contact Information

  • Office Location: 121 Hudson Hall, Box 90287, Durham, NC 27708
  • Office Phone: +1 919 660 5200
  • Email Address: miguel.medina@duke.edu

Education

  • B.S. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, 1968
  • M.S. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, 1972
  • Ph.D. University of Florida, 1976

Research Interests

Environmental engineering, cyberinfrastructure networks, sensors, geotropospheric interactions, engineering systems optimization.

Representative Publications

  • Medina, M. A., A. Achanta, J. Heyman, and D. Haerer. “Coupling high-resolution acoustic sensor measurements with analytical and numerical porous media solute transport modeling.” Journal of Hydrologic Engineering 16, no. 4 (April 8, 2011): 324–31. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000321.
  • Medina, M. A. “Global water crisis and climate change.” Journal of Hydrologic Engineering 15, no. 3 (March 1, 2010): 167–70. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000203.
  • Kazezyelmaz-Alhan, C. M., and M. A. M. Jr. “The effect of surface/ground water interactions on wetland sites with different characteristics.” Desalination 226, no. 1–3 (2008): 298–305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2007.01.246.
  • Kazezyilmaz-Alhan, C. M., M. A. Medina, and C. J. Richardson. “A wetland hydrology and water quality model incorporating surface water/groundwater interactions.” Water Resources Research 43, no. 4 (April 1, 2007). https://doi.org/10.1029/2006WR005003.
  • Kazezyilmaz-Alhan, C. M., and M. A. M. Jr. “Kinematic and diffusion waves: Analytical and numerical solutions to overland and channel flow.” Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 133, no. 2 (2007): 217–28. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9429(2007)133:2(217).