Julie Shortridge has been named assistant professor of biological systems engineering and Virginia Cooperative Extension specialist in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

She is one of eight faculty members recently hired in the college. New positions were identified to bring talent to its focus areas, including food and health, infectious disease, biodesign and processing, and agricultural profitability and environmental sustainability. The new faculty members are distributed across teaching, research, and Extension.

Shortridge’s research focuses on adaptation to climate change and the accompanying issue of deep uncertainty, with a particular focus on water resource systems. She aims to address the question of how highly uncertain climate change projections can be incorporated into long-term management of natural and engineered water systems. She is interested in using systems engineering methodologies, including risk and decision analysis, optimization, simulation, and statistical modeling, to address these issues.

She has six years of professional experience as an engineer working on groundwater contamination and as a consultant for the United Nations Environment Program on disaster preparedness. She holds a B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley in environmental engineering science and an M.S.E.  and doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in geography and environmental  engineering.

Written by Amy Loeffler

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