Paola Passalacqua

Paola Passalacqua is a professor in Geoscience at the University of Texas at Austin, where she held positions in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering. She earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 2009, an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 2005, and a B.S./M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Genoa in Italy in 2002, graduating summa cum laude. Passalacqua joined the University of Texas at Austin in 2011 as an Assistant Professor in Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, advancing to Associate Professor in 2017 and Professor in 2023. She also served as Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences from 2024 to 2025 and currently holds an Adjunct Professor position in Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering. Her research centers on hydrology and river system science, exploring how water shapes landscapes through studies of river deltas, channel networks, flood inundation mapping, and geomorphic processes using high-resolution topography data. Key publications include 'Connectivity as an Emergent Property of Geomorphic Systems' (Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 2019), 'Analyzing high resolution topography for advancing the understanding of mass and energy transfer through landscapes: A review' (Earth-Science Reviews, 2015), 'Surface water mapping by deep learning' (IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 2017), 'A geometric framework for channel network extraction from lidar: Nonlinear diffusion and geodesic paths' (Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 2010), and 'RivaMap: An automated river analysis and mapping engine' (Remote Sensing of Environment, 2017).

Passalacqua has received numerous awards for her contributions, including the NSF CAREER Award in 2014, the University of Texas Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award in 2017, the Ralph Alger Bagnold Medal from the European Geosciences Union in 2022, the Provost Teaching Fellow award in 2018, the Dean's Award for Outstanding Teaching by an Assistant Professor in 2015, and the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2016. She has served as a keynote speaker at symposia such as the Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium in 2016 and the Symposium on River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics in 2017, and held roles including co-lead in the Bridging Barriers initiative and election to the Graduate Assembly. Her work has advanced tools like RivaMap and GeoFlood for river analysis and flood mapping, influencing studies in landscape evolution and water resources engineering.

Professional Email: paola@austin.utexas.edu