Edwin Cowen

Edwin Cowen is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University's College of Engineering. He serves as Director of the DeFrees Hydraulics Laboratory and previously held the Kathy Dwyer Marble and Curt Marble Faculty Director for Energy position at the Atkinson Center for Sustainability (2013-2018). Cowen joined Cornell in 1997 after earning a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Brown University (1987) and M.S. (1991) and Ph.D. (1997) in Civil Engineering from Stanford University.

His research focuses on experimental and observational studies in environmental fluid mechanics, with five core themes: environmental transport processes, water wave dynamics, lake hydrodynamics, energy harvesting, and quantitative imaging techniques. He develops novel experimental methods and facilities to study phenomena like scale-dependent dispersion, wave-structure interactions, sediment suspension, and kinetic energy harvesting.

Key application areas include sustainability, renewable energy systems, and water resource management. His recent projects analyze San Francisco Bay Delta surface turbulence for juvenile fish transport, optimize turbine arrays for energy harvesting, explore pre-tensioned wave-like ribbons for mechanical energy capture, and investigate environmental DNA transport in Cayuga Lake.

Scientific Awards:

• James and Mary Tien Excellence in Teaching Award (2013)
• Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Teaching/Advising Award (2012)
• Chi Epsilon Professor of the Year (2010)
• Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow (2004)
• NSF CAREER Award (2001)

As an NSF-sponsored collaborator with Avangrid, Cowen works on residential electric storage systems for grid flexibility and renewable integration. He also contributes to Cornell's sustainability initiatives through the Lake Source Cooling Technical Advisory Committee and Earth Source Heat project steering team.