University of Notre Dame's Dr. Diogo Bolster will present a Distinguished Lecture for the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences on Friday, February 14, 2025 at 1:25 p.m. in the Watt Center auditorium.

His seminar title is “Transport of complex substances in complex environments.”  Classically, transport of solutes and contaminants in streams and rivers is treated in the same manner as transport in a pipe with solid boundaries. However, streams and rivers are complex with fast flow in the open channel as well as exchange and slower flow through the surrounding substrate. Even for simple solutes this can lead to behaviors that cannot be captured by conventional means. On top of this, streams and rivers are rich ecosystems with diverse microbial communities that can vary significantly in their impact depending on which part of the stream they live in. He will present a series of experiments and non-classical theory that allow for the inclusion of such complexities, which naturally accounts for the diversity and heterogeneity present in real settings. Finally, he will explore what the influence of this is on complex substances that are being transported, specifically substances that particulate and polydisperse (i.e. not characterized by a unique size and set of properties) in nature. Environmental DNA (eDNA) and antimicrobial resistance genes are used as examples of this and highlight what differences occur when the full range of complexity is accounted for relative to a purely classical approach.

Dr. Diogo Bolster is the Frank Freimann Professor of Hydrology and Chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. After completing his undergraduate degree at University College Dublin in Ireland, he worked as a CFD Engineer and Project Manager in Ireland and the UK before moving to the United States and completing a Ph.D. in Environmental Fluid Dynamics at the University of California San Diego. Post completing his PhD he moved to Spain and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Catalunya in Barcelona. In August 2010 he moved to Indiana to work at the University of Notre Dame and has been there since.

Research Summary:  Despite our image of Earth as “the blue planet,” global supplies of water are indispensable, yet fragile, resources. Threats to freshwater must be understood to assure sustainable supplies, as well as guide remediation and development. However, the complex heterogeneous makeup of the natural environment makes conventional models inadequate in predicting contamination. For example, EPA studies suggest certain court ordered remediation strategies do not adequately remediate polluted sites up to 90% of the time. Often, failure is attributable to designs that do not adequately represent natural complexity. Failing 9 of 10 times is unacceptable by any standard, highlighting a need for better models that incorporate natural complexities and heterogeneities. Dr Bolster’s research focuses on this, primarily for porous media and groundwater, but more recently also surface water flows. The ultimate goal is to provide improved tools and information to enable better management and protection of water resources. Active research topics include: (i) Mixing and Reactions in Highly Heterogeneous Porous Media; (ii) Incomplete Mixing and Chemical Reactions; (iii) Transport of complex substances in flowing aquatic systems; (iv) Anomalous Transport in Porous Media; (v) Transport of Nanoparticles in Streams and (vi) Multiphase Flow in Heterogeneous Porous Media as well as other collaborative efforts. Dr. Bolster’s scholarship record includes over 170 articles published in prominent scientific journals.