Hodges

Ben R. Hodges, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin.
My broad interests are environmental fluid mechanics, hydraulics and water resources.
I am interested in the physics of lakes and estuaries - where stratified mixing processes play a role in transport of nutrients, pollutants and biota.
In rivers, I am fascinated by the problems of scaling and how small-scale features affect larger-scale flow patterns and alter the geomorphology.
My research involves developing and using numerical models (principally three-dimensional hydrodynamic models) to understand the physics that affect water quality. A key interest is in the error behavior of models so that we can separate reality from model-induced hallucinations.
More recently, I have been working in field studies to understand short time-scale physical processes that provide templates controlling water quality evolution.
I am part of the Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Faculty in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, which is part of the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. I also am involved in inter-disciplinary collaborations, including an NSF-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) through the UT Environmental Science Institute.