Internships

Wiley Kohler ’25

Major

Mathematics

Project Title

Understanding Watershed Processes in Complex Terrain – Mountain Hydrology Field Camp

Much of the American West relies on the waters of the Colorado River, but the mountain processes that drive its flow are poorly understood. While models can help interested parties make water use decisions, they often fail to account for small-scale processes in small stream catchments. Through intense study of one such catchment, I aimed to better understand how conditions at these small stream catchments scale up to entire drainages. I worked with another intern and a Ph.D. candidate in an intensive field data collection campaign to gather vast amounts of hydrometeorological data, including soil moisture and streamflow data. I found this project exciting from a research perspective as a bridge between real-world observations and modeling. In addition, I preprocessed data for analysis, which included fixing data anomalies due to snowfall. I also developed a model for inferring the hydrologic properties of soil, which was an exciting opportunity to contribute to a larger project and ideate independently. I plan to refine and test my model as a part of my junior or senior independent work, and my summer experience will likely lead me to pursue similar research that includes a real-world field component in the future.