research overview
- Prof. Joseph Kasprzyk is associate professor and associate chair for graduate education in the Civil Environmental and Architectural Engineering department at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research group has contributed decision making methodologies for diverse engineering problems including reservoir management for water resources systems, water treatment plant operations, and the design of sustainable materials. These methodologies combine multi-objective optimization using evolutionary algorithms with interactive visualization and machine learning classification approaches to derive insights for the decision problems. The work is disseminated to groups of stakeholders via interactive workshops and close collaboration with stakeholders. As part of CU’s Center for Advanced Decision Support for Environmental Systems (CADSWES), the group has led a multi-year effort to develop decision making methodologies to support the Post 2026 negotiation of operation of the Colorado River Basin. An interactive app that visualizes performance of alternative management paradigms for the Basin is supporting this effort, developed based on research from the Kasprzyk group, Prof. Edie Zagona, and CADSWES. Additional research projects include calibration and model diagnostics for hydrologic modeling applications and methods for incorporating water usage into electricity grid operations. Kasprzyk earned the BS, MS, and PhD from Penn State University. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Scholar Alumni Award from the Penn State Schreyer Honors College and the Early Career Research Excellence Award from the International Environmental Modelling Society.
