HAS Professor Jim Yeh to Present Science Cafe Hosted by the Museum of Nature and Science and Sigma Xi at NM Tech, Socorro, New Mexico
Best wishes to HAS Professor Jim T-C Yeh for his upcoming featured presentation at the Science Cafe at NM Tech in Socorro, New Mexico!
Despite the recent advances in AI, Machine Learning, and other interpretational tools, the fact is that densely monitored spatiotemporal data are most critical. This talk explores our common sense for collecting data intelligently with the limited number of sensors over basins by exploiting the power of natural stimuli to enhance our understanding of the subsurface sciences and engineering.
Science Café: A View Toward The Future Of The Subsurface Sciences And Engineering Technology
The Museum of Nature & Science and Sigma Xi present “A View Toward The Future Of The Subsurface Sciences And Engineering Technology” with guest speaker T.C. Jim Yeh. Yeh joins us via Zoom Tuesday, October 17, at 5:30pm, NM, (4:30 pm, AZ). Please contact amicevska@lascruces.gov or call 575-522-3120 for a link to the program or go to zoom.us with webinar ID: 897 7011 9755
High-resolution characterization, monitoring, and prediction are crucial to advancing and reducing uncertainty in understanding and predicting basin-scale subsurface processes. Recently developed tomographic surveys based on common sense have been proven as a practical way to collect a large amount of non-redundant data such that AI and other tools can correctly interpret the hydrogeologic processes in the field-scale subsurface. The fusion of different types of tomographic surveys further enhances the characterization.
A basin is an appropriate scale for water resources and geoengineering management purposes. Expanding the tomographic surveying and data fusion concept to basin-scale characterization by exploiting recurrent natural stimuli (e.g., lightning, earthquakes, storm events, barometric variations, river-stage variations, etc.) as sources of excitations is a logical next step because of their enormous power and areal coverage. Implementing automatic sensor networks, monitoring long-term and spatially distributed excitation, and surface and subsurface responses spontaneously lead to naturally recurrent basin-scale tomographic surveys.
This vision for basin-scale subsurface characterization faces many significant technological challenges. It requires interdisciplinary collaborations (e.g., surface and subsurface hydrology, geophysics, geology, geochemistry, information and sensor technology, applied mathematics, atmospheric science, etc.). This vision should be a future direction for subsurface science and geoengineering research.
Dr. Yeh graduated from NM Tech, Socorro, NM, in 1983 and is a professor at the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona. He specializes in numerical, stochastic, and field investigation of flow through heterogeneous geologic formations. He discovered the moisture-dependent anisotropy of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity and moisture-dependent dispersion concepts in the vadose zone hydrology. More importantly, he pioneered the development of hydraulic, river-stage, and lightning tomographic surveys. He is the first author of two books: Flow Through Heterogeneous Geologic Media (2015, Cambridge University Press) and An Introduction to Solute Transport in Heterogeneous Geologic Media (2023, Cambridge University Press). According to Google Scholar (10/3/2023), his publications have received citations:11,298, h-index: 55, i10-index:155. He can be contacted via stochasticfusion@gmail.com or yeh@arizona.edu.
Dr. Yeh appreciated guidance from his former professors, Lynn Gelhar, Alan Gutjahr, and Daniel Stephenson (NM Tech) for opening the door of the stochastic realm for him and for warm friendships from many classmates from NMT. Dr. Yeh said: It is unbelievable that Socorro, a small town in a desert, changed his and his wife’s life.
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