Departmental Unit № 1
Environmental Systems (ES) Graduate Group & Civil and Environmental Engineering
PhD in Environmental Systems
100% Full Funding Guaranteed (5 Years)
Funding Package: Full UC tuition remission + 12-month living stipend (~$35,000–$39,000/yr) + comprehensive health insurance package guaranteed via GSR research assistantships and teaching fellowships.
Fall Priority Deadline: January 15 (Fall Priority)
GRE Policy: Not required / Waived
English Minimums: TOEFL iBT 80 or IELTS 7.0
MS in Environmental Systems (Thesis Track)
Eligible for GSR/TA Funding (Target PhD for Guaranteed Multi-year)
Funding Reality: GSR positions are awarded to qualified thesis MS students by individual faculty members.
Application Deadline: January 15
Admissions Advisory: If full funding is required and MS is self-funded, students are strongly advised to apply directly to the PhD track.
Vetted Matched Scholars (2 Profiles)
Prof. Joshua Viers
Professor of Water Resources Engineering and Director, CITRIS at UC Merced
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
He uses camera drones and satellite maps to track how California farms pump out underground water, designing 'Flood-MAR' projects that divert winter storm floods onto dormant crop fields to recharge sinking aquifers.
Core Research Topics: Watershed hydrology, geospatial water resources, drone hydro-mapping, environmental river flows, California water infrastructure resilience.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Leading the Secure Water Future consortium, deploying multispectral UAVs and geospatial algorithms to quantify agricultural groundwater overdraft, flood-managed aquifer recharge (Flood-MAR), and environmental river flow thresholds across California's Central Valley (USDA NIFA / NSF 2024–2026).
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: Multispectral UAVs, ArcGIS Pro, Python, HEC-RAS hydraulic models, satellite evapotranspiration data (OpenET), spatial decision support systems.
Recruiting Context: Director of CITRIS and major leader of large-scale California water security consortia.
Candidate Match:
HydrologyGISRemote SensingFlood StudiesWater Quality
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Discussing your interest in geospatial water resources modeling, UAV hydromapping, and managed aquifer recharge (Flood-MAR) in your research group."
Prof. Teamrat A. Ghezzehei
Professor of Environmental Soil Physics
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
He tests how water and chemical fertilizers seep down through unsaturated soil layers using X-ray 3D scanners and physics equations, figuring out how to prevent agricultural poisons from reaching groundwater.
Core Research Topics: Soil physics, unsaturated porous media flow, contaminant transport in vadose zones, soil carbon stabilization, moisture retention.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Investigating how soil aggregate structural dynamics and extreme drying-wetting cycles control the retention of agricultural nitrate pollutants and biochar carbon sequestration in semi-arid soils (DOE / NSF 2024–2026).
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: HYDRUS-1D/2D, micro-CT imaging, tension infiltrometers, pressure plate extractors, laboratory soil column transport, Python.
Recruiting Context: Foremost expert in soil physics and unsaturated water/solute transport.
Candidate Match:
HydrologyEnvironmental PollutionWater QualityWet Lab Environmental Testing
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Discussing your interest in unsaturated porous media flow, HYDRUS reactive solute transport modeling, and soil water physics in the Ghezzehei Lab."