Welcome to my GitHub page.

Hi, I am Marcus, a researcher originally from Brazil who enjoys barbecuing, watching soccer games, trying new recipes in my free time, and is passionate about understanding how water behaves.

I was born in 1995 and spent my early years up to college in my hometown in the state of Paraná, Brazil. Growing up in such a small city allowed me to explore my curiosity for nature to a wonderful level. I always remind myself, as a kid playing in the storm (still do to this day sometimes), building small earth dams - perhaps that was my first memory related to civil/environmental or water resources engineering.

Life was simple; we had no cellphones, no internet, and it was just our free time and curiosity to play with my friends, fail, learn, grow, have fun, and that inspired me so much to develop the intimate desire to not only see work as a responsibility, but also to find joy in doing it.

I honestly think this is essential if one wants to do great work.

My father worked in the water resources council of our state, and my mother was a teacher. Both inspired me to follow a path in academia and to work with water resources.

Bruce Lee once said:

“If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend”.

This has always been on my mind. The movement of water shapes the way life works, in some way.

Studying how water can change its shape, force, velocity, and physical properties, and how it can rapidly or sometimes take years to move under a specific medium, is just one of the few amazing phenomena I am interested in understanding and learning from. This is beautiful.

I would describe myself as a simple, passionate researcher in the field of water resources, continually striving to learn something new every day about this fascinating area.

My formal education includes a background in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, and Hydraulic Engineering and Sanitation.

Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona - Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences studying hillslope hydrology merged with data assimilation techniques applied to one of the world’s most extensive field experiments in hillslope hydrology - The Landscape Evolution Observatory Hillslope.

I hold a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering (2013-2018), a Master’s degree (2018-2020) and Ph.D. (2020-2023) in Hydraulics and Sanitation Engineering at the University of Sao Paulo.

In addition, I also have another ongoing Ph.D., which I started in 2020, in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Texas at San Antonio, from which I still have one last credit to graduate, with plans to graduate after my postdoctoral studies.

I also have a YouTube channel and a website where I share a variety of spreadsheets (over 80) and articles across multiple fields, including hydrology, hydraulics, structural engineering, geotechnics, and general comments. This website, which to this date has provided more than 90,000 spreadsheets downloaded by people in around 10 countries, has allowed me to develop an interesting connection between the academic world and practical solutions, sharpening my thinking for both levels. More information about this can be found in my CV.

Research

My research focuses on understanding and predicting components of the water cycle in relevant spatiotemporal scales using physics-based numerical modeling and data assimilation techniques via multi-source information.

More specifically, my research goal is to develop state-of-the-art efficient tools to accurately represent flood and water quality transport and fate dynamics, especially in high spatiotemporal resolution, although not limited to.

In addition to this primary focus, I also have an interest in:

• Hydrologic Modeling
• Hydrodynamic Modeling
• GPU Processing
• Geographical Information Systems
• Remote Sensing
• Hazard Mapping
• Green Infrastructure
• Low Impact Development
• Sustainable Drainage Systems
• Land Surface Modeling
• Natural Hazards
• Early Warning Systems
• Disaster Risk Reduction
• Serious Games
• Education in Science

Fields and Keywords of Interest

Civil and Environmental Engineering

• Flood Control,
• Water Quality Transport and Fate
• Water Availability
• Water Resources Planning and Management

System Analysis

• Linear Systems and Control
• Control of Non-Linear Systems
• Feedback Control
• Model Predictive Control
• Linear Quadratic Regulators

Mathematics

• Numerical Modeling
• Explicit/Implicit Methods
• Finite-Volume Methods
• Finite-Difference Methods
• Convex Optimization
• Non-Linear Non-Convex Optimization
• Data Assimilation
• Reinforcement Learning
• Particle Filter

Please feel free to reach out to me at marcusnobrega.engcivil@gmail.com or through any other social media links available on this page.

I will be pleased to help and collaborate :)