Associate Research ScientistStroud Water Research Center
970 Spencer Rd
Avondale, Pennsylvania 19348
Email: mdaniels@stroudcenter.org
Phone: 610-268-2153 x268
Visit Melinda's Research Website
Research Disciplines: Research Interests:
stream restoration, watershed management, watershed hydrology, stream temperature, phycial stream habitat, stream channel change, riparian-stream interactions
View Melinda's CVBiographical Sketch
MELINDA D. DANIELS is Associate Research Scientist and Director of the Fluvial Geomorphology Section at the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, PA
Dr. Daniels holds a BS in Natural Resources from Cornell University, a Masters of Research in Environmental Science from University College of London, England, and a PhD in Physical Geography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her specialties include fluvial geomorphology and river restoration science and policy, with emphases on in-channel flow hydraulics, channel erosion, large river planform dynamics, human impacts on hydrologic and geomorphic regimes, river restoration assessment, and the interconnections between hydro-geomorphologic and ecological processes in stream ecosystems. Her work has been funded by federal, state, local, and non-governmental organizations including The National Science Foundation, the US Geological Survey, the US Department of Agriculture, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and has resulted in over 40 peer-reviewed publications. Currently, her research focuses on legacy disturbances to watersheds in Great Plains, Rocky Mountain, and Mid-Atlantic river systems including effects of grassland grazing on prairie headwater stream geomorphology and sediment transport dynamics, the effects of past forest harvesting practices on woody debris dynamics in the Rocky Mountains, the effects of large and small dams on hydrologic and geomorphological dynamics, modeling impacts of climate change on coupled human-watershed systems in the Central Great Plains, long term research on the effects of riparian reforestation, experiments with innovative practices for watershed restoration, and the role of biological ecosystem engineers in regulating stream processes. She serves on the Environmental Advisory Board to the US Army Corps of Engineers. Before joining the Stroud Water Research Center she was a tenured Associate Professor of Geography at Kansas State University.