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Mary Catherine Hill is an American hydrologist, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the winner of the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize and of the Dooge Medal of the
International Association of Hydrological Sciences The International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) is a non-profit non-governmental scientific organisation committed to serving the science of hydrology and the worldwide community of hydrologists. The IAHS was established in 1922, ...
, a Darcy Lecturer for the National Ground Water Association, and Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America. After working for 33 years at the United States Geological Survey, she became a professor of geology at the University of Kansas.


Education and career

Hill received her B.S. in Business Administration and Geology from Hope College, and received her masters and doctorate in civil engineering under the direction of George F. Pinder, specializing in water resources, at Princeton University in 1985. Her dissertation was ''An investigation of hydraulic conductivity estimation in a ground-water flow study of Northern Long Valley, New Jersey''. She worked for 33 years at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) before joining the geology department at the University of Kansas as a professor in 2014. She is PI on a $2.5M NSF INFEWS (Innovations at the Food, Energy, Water Nexus) program grant from 2019 to 2024.


Contributions

Much of Hill's research at the USGS concerned
groundwater model Groundwater models are computer models of groundwater flow systems, and are used by hydrologists and hydrogeologists. Groundwater models are used to simulate and predict aquifer conditions. Characteristics An unambiguous definition of "groundwate ...
ing, simulation of groundwater, and evaluation of the accuracy of groundwater simulations. At the USGS, she was one of the main developers of the
MODFLOW MODFLOW is the U.S. Geological Survey modular finite-difference flow model, which is a computer code that solves the groundwater flow equation. The program is used by hydrogeologists to simulate the flow of groundwater through aquifers. The sou ...
groundwater flow simulation code. More recently, she has also studied modeling and simulation of rainwater runoff. At the University of Kansas, she established the Mary C. Hill Research Fund for Women in the Sciences to help support female junior faculty in
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of ...
. With Claire R. Tiedeman, Hill is the author of the book ''Effective Groundwater Model Calibration: With Analysis of Data, Sensitivities, Predictions, and Uncertainty'' (John Wiley & Sons, 2007).


Recognition

Hill won the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize in 2000, and was Darcy Lecturer for the National Ground Water Association in 2001. In 2005, the National Ground Water Association gave her their M. King Hubbert Award. In 2015, the International Association of Hydrological Sciences awarded her the Dooge Medal. Hill is past president of the International Commission for Ground Water ICGW. She has been a Fellow of the Geological Society of America since 2003, and was also elected as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union "for development of innovative methods for parameter estimation and sensitivity analysis in hydrologic modeling". In 2021, Hill was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering "for contributions to development and application of methods for parameter estimation and sensitivity analysis in hydrologic models".


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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Mary C. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American hydrologists Hydrogeologists American women geologists American geologists Hope College alumni Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni United States Geological Survey personnel University of Kansas faculty Fellows of the American Geophysical Union Fellows of the Geological Society of America Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering American women academics Women hydrologists