Summary
Dr. Tyler's areas of focus span the wide range of hydrology and environmental fluid dynamics. He is a Professor Emeritus with the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering and adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He serves as co-PI for the Centers for Transformative Environmental Sensing Programs (www.ctemps.org), a National Science Foundation supported instrument center focusing on the development of distributed fiber optic sensing, unmanned aircraft remote sensing and innovative environmental sensors.
He as published over 130 peer reviewed manuscripts and book chapters beginning with a focus on fractal approaches in porous media, arid region hydrogeology, variable density groundwater flow, micrometeorology and remote sensing. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America and the Soil Science Society of America.
Beginning in late 2022, Dr. Tyler was appointed by President Biden to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) and serves as deputy chair. The NTWRB (www.nwtrb.gov) provides technical review to the US Department of Energy's spent nuclear fuel and high level nuclear waste management and disposal.
Relevant past experience
Tyler has conducted research on land surface energy exchanges in the Atacama Desert of Chile and in Switzerland, developed paleoclimate response of desert vadose zone and aquifers, quantification of the role of convection on Antarctic lakes and studied the impact of the 2004 Asian tsunami on groundwater quality in Sri Lanka. He is a former editor for AGU's Water Resources Research,past Chair of the American Geophysical Union's Hydrology Section and past Chair of the GSA's Hydrogeology Division and former Distinguished Darcy Lecturer.
Research interests
His research is focused on water, solutes and energy fluxes in the subsurface, as well as their exchange into the atmosphere. He and his team of students and post-doctoral researchers are currently also studying the role of groundwater/surface water interactions in aquatic ecology,the study of Antarctic ice shelf stability, the quantitative assessment of root dynamics using micro-Computed X-ray Tomography (MCT), as well as the design and operation of salinity-gradient solar ponds coupled with membrane distillation for the development of low-cost desalination.
Courses taught
- Vadose Zone Hydrology (GEOL 784): This graduate level course focuses on the flow and transport of water and solutes in unsaturated porous media. The course emphasis numerical methods and the course extensively uses a partially saturated flow and transport simulator for all aspects of the topics.
- Ground Water Hydrology (GE 684): This course provides the basic introduction to ground water hydrology. It is required for all Hydrologic Sciences Program graduate students as well as all undergraduates in Geologic Engineering.
- Evaporation and its Measurement (GEOL 782): This graduate level seminar is designed to introduce the concepts of evaporation and energy transport at the land surface. The course details commonly used empirical, energy budget and direct measurement techniques to estimate actual and potential evapotranspiration. Taught in 1995 and 2006.
- Hydrologic Field Methods (GEOL 701Z): This graduate level course emphasis “hands-on” training of all major methods and equipment used for both surface water and ground water investigations. Components of the course include a 48 hour aquifer test, geochemical sampling of groundwater, construction and maintenance of an automated weather station, stream gauging, stream sediment analysis, and aquifer slug testing and basic surveying. This course is taught yearly.
- Hydrology/Hydrogeology Seminar (GEOL 782): This is a required course of all Hydrologic Science Graduate students. The course emphasizes writing skills, presentation skills and review of seminal papers in the hydrologic sciences. Taught yearly since 1999.
Education
- Ph.D. Hydrology/Hydrogeology, University of Nevada, Reno, 1990
- Dissertation Title: Fractal Applications to Soil Hydraulic Properties
- M.S. in Hydrology, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, 1983
- Thesis Title: Field Results of Borehole Infiltration Tests
- B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Connecticut,1978
Selected publications
- Dotto, T.S., K.J. Heywood, R.A.Hall, T. A. Scambos, Y. Zheng, Y. Nakayama, S. Hyogo, T. Snow, A. Wahlin, C. Wild, M. Truffer, A. Muto, K. E. Alley, L. Boehme, G. A. Bortolotto, S.W. Tyler and E. Pettit. (2022) Ocean variability beneath Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf driven by the Pine Island Bay Gyre strength. Nature Communications.
- M. R. Siegfried, R. A. Venturelli, M. O. Patterson, W. Arnuk, T. D. Campbell, C. D. Gustafson, A. B. Michaud, B. Galton-Fenzi, M. B. Hausner, S. N. Holzschuh, B. Huber, K. D. Mankoff D. M. Schroeder, P. Summers, S.W. Tyler., S. P. Carter, H. A. Fricker, D. Harwood, A. Leventer, B. E. Rosenheim, M.L. Skidmore, J. C. Priscu and the SALSA Science Team (2022). The life and death of a subglacial lake in West Antarctica. Geology.
- Hardage, K., S.J. Wheelock, R. Gaffney, T. O’Halloran, B. Serpa, G. Grant, M. Coppoletta, A. Csank, C. Tague, M. Staudacher and S. Tyler (2022). Soil Moisture and micrometeorological differences across reference and thinned stands during extremes of precipitation, Southern Cascade Range. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.
- Tyler, S.W., J. Selker, N. Van de Giesen, T. Bogaard and J. Aguilar-Lopez. (2022). Distributed Fiber-optics Hydrogeophysics. In The Groundwater Project Series.
- Mancewicz, L. L. Davisson, S. J. Wheelock, E.R. Burns, S.R. Poulson and S.W. Tyler (2021) Impacts of Climate Change on Groundwater Availability and Spring Flows: Observations from the Highly Productive Medicine Lake Highlands/Fall River Springs Aquifer System. Journal of the American Water Resources Assoc.
- Weisberg, P.J., T.E. Dilts, J. A. Greenberg, K. N. Johnson, H. Pai, C. Sladek, C. Kratt, S. W. Tyler and A. Ready. (2021). Phenology-based classification of invasive annual grasses to the species level. Remote Sensing Env.
- Clark, M.P., C.H. Luce, A. AghaKouchak, W. Berghuijs, C. H. David, Q. Duan, S. Ge, I. van Meerveld, C. Zheng, M. Parlange and S. W. Tyler. (2021). Open Science: Open Data…and Open Publications? Water Resources Res.
- Cooper, A. E., Kirchner, J. W., Wolf, S., Lombardozzi, D. L., Sullivan, B. W., Tyler, S. W., & Harpold, A. A. (2020). Snowmelt causes different limitations on transpiration in a Sierra Nevada conifer forest. Agricultural And Forest Meteorology, 291, 108089.
- Meira Neto, A.A., Niu, G.Y., Roy, T., Tyler, S. and Troch, P. (2020). Interactions between snow cover and evaporation lead to higher sensitivity of streamflow to temperature. Commun Earth Environ 1, 56.
- Tyler, S.W. (2020) Are arid regions always that appropriate for waste disposal? Examples of complexity from Yucca Mountain Nevada. Geosciences. 10(1)
- Hallnan, R., Saito, L., Busby, D. and Tyler, S. (2020) Modeling Shasta Reservoir water temperature responses for the 2015 drought and future climate change. ASCE Jour. of Water Res. Planning and Manag. 146(5): 04020018
- Kratt, C.B., Woo, D.K., Johnson, K.N., Haagsma, M., Kumar, P., Selker, J. and Tyler, S. (2019) Field trials to detect drainage pipe networks using thermal and RGB data from unmanned aircraft. Agric. Water Manag.
- Pestana, S., Chickadel, C.C., Harpold, A., Kostadinov, T.S., Pai, H. Tyler, S., Webster, C. and Lundquist, J.D. (2019). Bias correction of airborne thermal infrared observations over forests using melting snow. Water Res. Research.
- Wang, H., X. Comas, and S. Tyler (2019), Fiber-optic networks find a new use as seismic sensor arrays, Eos, 100.
- Wilson, C.G., B. Abban, L.L. Keefer, K. Wacha, D. Dermisis, C. Giannopoulos, S. Zhou, A.E. Goodwell, D.K. Woo, Q. Yan, M. Ghadiri, A. Stumpf, M. Pitcel, Y.-F. Lin, L. Marini, B. Storsved, K. Goff, J. Vogelgsang, A. Dere, K.E. Schilling, M. Muste, N.E. Blair, B. Rhoads, A. Bettis, H. Pai, C. Kratt, C. Sladek, M. Wing, Selker, S. Tyler, H. Lin, P. Kumar, and A.N. Papanicolaou. (2018) The Intensively Managed Landscape Critical Zone Observatory: A scientific testbed for understanding critical zone processes in agroecosystems. Vadose Zone J. 17:180088.
- Tyler, S., O. P. Jensen, Z. Hogan, S. Chandra, L. Galland, J. Simmons and the 2017 Taiman Research Team (2018). Perspectives on the application of unmanned aircraft for freshwater fisheries census. Fisheries. Vol 43(11)
- Kostadinov, T., A. Harpold, M. Haunser, K. Bormann, R. Gaffney, K. McGwire, T. Painter, S. Tyler and R. Schumer (2019). Lidar and in-situ mapping of fractional snow cover in montane forests: Implications for optical remote sensing of seasonal snow. Remote Sensing of Environment.