In Summer 2018, Elliot Alexander graduated with his Master of Science degree in Hydrology, Water Resources & Environmental Fluid Mechanics within Civil Engineering. Elliot's Master's research, co-advised with Dr. Edith Zagona, focused on generating and identifying robust Lake Mead reservoir operating policies. In this research, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) was coupled with the Colorado River Simulation System (CRSS) RiverWare model to generate and evaluate thousands of new operating policies for Lake Mead. The MOEA-generated policies were then re-simulated across multiple future water supply and water demand scenarios testing each policy’s performance across a wide range of plausible future uncertainty. This research identified multiple robust operating policies through applying a robustness analysis to the set of MOEA-generated policies. Our research team is currently adapting the findings from Elliot's research into a journal article, and the work is ongoing. Elliot had the following quote about his time at CU:
My time at CU Boulder was an invaluable experience where I sharped my analytical and technical skills to become a more confident engineer. The friends and connections that I made during my graduate studies have opened career opportunities and helped me land the job I currently have.
After graduation, Elliot has been working as a Hydrologic Engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation and is currently on assignment at the Center for Advanced Decision Support for Water and Environmental Systems (CADSWES) in Boulder, Colorado. Elliot's present work activities at the Bureau of Reclamation includes, continuing to explore long-term operating policies in the Colorado River Basin using a MOEA, performing hydrologic and salinity analysis using the CRSS RiverWare model, and assisting in the consumptive uses and losses reporting for the Upper Colorado River Basin.