CEREO Co-Directors
Julie Padowski
Julie Padowski has been working with CEREO since 2014 helping build out the Center’s interdisciplinary environmental research, education and outreach activities at Washington State University. As faculty within the the School of the Environment, Padowski’s research has been aimed at identifying and quantifying drinking water vulnerability from the local to the global scale. Her work spans topics from wildfire impacts on water utility operations, to global assessments of urban water needs and risks.
As Co-Director, Padowski works to identify cutting-edge research opportunities for CEREO affiliates and build strong, collaborative, interdisciplinary research teams. In addition, Padowski is the University representative for the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center and is a faculty mentor for the transdisciplinary WSU Rivers, Watersheds and Communities graduate training program.
Padowski earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Soil and Water Science Department at the University of Florida, and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Stanford University with the Woods Institute for the Environment. As a doctoral student, she was a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) fellow in a program focused on the adaptive management of water, wetlands, and watersheds.
Julie Padowski, PhD
Co-Director, Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach
Research Associate Professor, School of the Environment
PACCAR 256
(509) 335-8539
julie.padowski@wsu.edu
https://cereo.wsu.edu/core-faculty-padowski/
Sasha McLarty
Sasha McLarty is a hydrologist who lives in the world between science and engineering. She believes the study of water necessitates an interdisciplinary approach and is excited to expand her interdisciplinary endeavors by joining CEREO as a Co-Director in August 2024. Dr. McLarty is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Dr. McLarty’s research leverages a diversity of tools and data to better answer three questions: How much water do we have? How much water do we use? How much water do we need? Her main interest is in identifying and quantifying the interaction between human and physical systems, with a focus on groundwater and large-scale hydrologic systems. Her research interests also include water scarcity, the food-energy-water nexus, science for decision support and water resources management.
Dr. McLarty brings to CEREO a history of interdisciplinary collaboration and science communication & outreach. Interdisciplinary partnerships have led to studies on the economic value of groundwater during drought and citizen science campaigns to monitor groundwater in Northeast Brazil and the Columbia River Basin. She has discussed the utility of remote sensing to study global water stress with congressional members in Washington DC and led capacity building workshops on water resources management in Central Asia. Dr. McLarty is committed to getting scientific findings into the hands of those who can advance sustainable natural resource management and looks forward to supporting and facilitating applied research with CEREO.
McLarty holds a Ph.D. (2014) and M.S. (2012) in Civil Engineering with a Hydrology and Water Resources specialty from the University of California, Irvine, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering with an Environmental and Water Studies specialty from Stanford University (2008).
Dr. Alexandra (Sasha) Richey McLarty
Co-Director, Center for Environmental Research, Education, and Outreach
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
PACCAR 258
sasha.richey@wsu.edu
https://ce.wsu.edu/faculty/dr-alexandria-sasha-richey/
