The Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology, or CIROH, hosted its second annual Developer’s Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the University of Utah. The conference was held May 29-June 1.
The conference focused on a wide range of topics relating to hydrological forecasting, particularly of extreme events – in line with CIROH’s current research and development emphasis. These included hydrological modeling, or NextGen; flood inundation mapping, or FIM; hydroinformatics; social science and community engagement.
“Based on the number of people who were eager to participate and contribute, it is clear that the CIROH community sees great value in this conference,” said Dr. Sagy Cohen, CIROH deputy director and a member of the conference’s organization committee. “It was heartwarming to see the CIROH community, ranging across career stages and disciplinary topics, come together to learn and share their knowledge.”
The conference aimed to develop a community of practice around CIROH’s research and development activities. It featured a daily mix of keynote presentations, training workshops, poster sessions and networking events, as well as the presentation of the Student Developer Award.
This year, Mohamed Abdelkader from Stevens Institute of Technology was awarded the CIROH Annual Student Developer Award. The award honors a submission from a student who has demonstrated an outstanding contribution to CIROH’s research endeavors.
“For students, the CIROH Developers Conference is a great opportunity to engage with CIROH partners in academia, industry and federal agencies,” said Lanna Nations, Alabama Water Institute’s director of education and outreach. “This conference serves as a training opportunity for students to immerse themselves in workshops aimed at providing a structured learning and training opportunity focusing on specific topics related to research to operations in hydrology.”
Aside from students, the conference offered all participants an opportunity to engage with the CIROH community and its federal partners, learn about recent research and development activities and get hands-on training on emerging models, tools and services.
More information about the Developers Conference can be found on the CIROH website.