Welcome to the online portfolio of
CIELO SHARKUS
BIOGRAPHY
Welcome to my online portfolio! I am a rising fourth-year doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. I use hybrid field and computational methods to apply an interdisciplinary lens to watershed research and climate engineering. My Ph.D. is in Environmental Engineering with a concentration in water resource engineering. I hold a Masters of Engineering in Environmental Engineering from UMass, and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry with a minor in Environmental Studies with distinction from WPI. When I am not in the office, I enjoy being an active leader in the National Society of Black Engineers and running my non-profit organization HOPE. Outside of research, I love to travel! In 2022 you can find me at the NSBE conference in Anaheim, the EJ HBCU meeting in New Orleans, EGU in Vienna, AGU in Chicago, and more!
RESEARCH INTERESTS
An Interdisciplinary Approach
I am an imaginative engineer focused on providing high-quality science and engineering research on climate change. I use applied interdisciplinary research tools to solve large-scale watershed management issues under climate warming scenarios. I use social, biological, and geophysical analysis tools to understand the hazardous impacts of climate-related phenomena (anthropogenic pollution, drought, flooding) on surface water quality and quantity. I work on hybrid field and computational models that examine hazardous pollutant movement & other hazards in the soil-water interface. My goal is to simultaneously assess the geophysical and hydrological impacts while understanding how community infrastructure fares as well. I use a tangential empirical & software engineering approach to apply field data to machine learning/GIS models. Other research interests of mine include the relationship between climate change and the urban environment, understanding the mechanisms in which climate-driven pollutants affect human health.