Meagan M Tobias The International Conference on Urban Drainage 2021

Meagan M Tobias

Meagan M. Tobias is a Ph.D. pre-candidate in civil engineering with a concentration in intelligent systems at the University of Michigan. In addition, she is pursuing an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a concentration in signal processing and machine learning. She is motivated by urbanization, climate change, and aging infrastructure which are overwhelming our waterways. Her approach uses recent advances in technology in sensors and wireless sensor networks. Most stormwater infrastructure passively operates to route water throughout the watershed. It is difficult and costly to adjust system performance after installation and these systems offer little flexibility to change its configuration. Similar to self-driving cars, watersheds can be equipped with low-cost sensors and valves to monitor and adapt infrastructure for better performance. She is focusing on expanding the range of parameters that can incorporated into these new technological applications. Specifically, she is exploring how to more frequently and less laboriously monitor for pollutants such as total suspended solids and developing multi-functional optimization control algorithms for flooding, pollutant treatment, and community preferences at a watershed level. Meagan is a founding member of Open-Storm.org, an open-source consortium dedicated to freely sharing hardware, software, and case studies on smart water systems. She is a recipient of the Rackham Merit Fellowship. In her department, she serves as a peer mentor and a member of an informal student and faculty group working on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.