Biography
Her primary research interests are in hydrology, hydrometeorology and environmental physics with a focus on water-cycle processes in the coupled land-atmosphere-biosphere system, particularly in regions of complex terrain. She has expertise in the critical area of water security and environmental sustainability, with emphasis on the study of water cycle processes taking place in the land-atmosphere-biosphere system. Her research relies on intensive field and laboratory experiments, large-scale computational modeling, nonlinear data analysis and environmental informatics.
She has received multiple prestigious awards for her numerous pioneering technical contributions and many leadership roles in major national and international research and professional programs, including election to the National Academy of Engineering in 2019. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and a member of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union.
Research Interests
Water Resources Engineering and Science
Development and application of information technology as a research tool and in the operation of complex engineering systems.
Computational environmental fluid mechanics and nonlinear dynamics;
Remote sensing of the environment using microwave and infrared sensors; long– range predictability and risk analysis of natural hazards;
Physics of water cycle processes in mountainous regions with a focus on cloud formation and precipitation;
Education
- M.S. University of Porto, Portugal
- M.S. Oregon Institute of Technology, 1990
- Ph.D. University of Washington, 1993
Additional Campus Affiliations
Donald Biggar Willett Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Head, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Recent Publications
Montanari, A., Barros, A., Becker, T., Bierkens, M., Billings, S., Cardenas, M. B., Davidson, E., Gruber, N., Hofmann, E., Hudson, M., Illangasekare, T., Kang, S., Moreno, M., Nimmo, F., Paxton, L., Primeau, F., Salters, V., Schimel, D., Stevens, B., ... Zhang, X. (2025). Thank You to Our 2024 Reviewers. AGU Advances, 6(2), Article e2025AV001711. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001711
Barros, A., Becker, T., Cardenas, M. B., Davidson, E., Gruber, N., Hofmann, E., Hudson, M., Illangasekare, T., Kang, S., Montanari, A., Moreno, M., Nimmo, F., Paxton, L., Primeau, F., Salters, V., Schimel, D., Stevens, B., Su, H., Tierney, J., ... Zhang, X. (2024). Thank You to Our 2023 Peer Reviewers. AGU Advances, 5(3), Article e2024AV001290. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024AV001290
Ji, L., & Barros, A. P. (2024). Toward Building a Virtual Laboratory to Investigate Rainfall Microphysics at Process Scales. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 81(6), 999-1017. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-23-0121.1
Liu, Q., & Barros, A. P. (2024). The role of root dynamics on the climate sensitivity of ecohydrological processes of over- and understory in a semi-arid groundwater-dependent ecosystem. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 12, Article 1477059. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2024.1477059
Singh, S., Durand, M., Kim, E., & Barros, A. P. (2024). Bayesian physical--statistical retrieval of snow water equivalent and snow depth from X- and Ku-band synthetic aperture radar -- demonstration using airborne SnowSAr in SnowEx'17. Cryosphere, 18(2), 747-773. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-747-2024