Marcelo Horacio Garcia

Marcelo Horacio García is the M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Endowed Chair and Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He serves as Director of the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory and holds affiliations with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. His research focuses on water resources engineering, hydraulics, sediment transport, and environmental fluid mechanics. He has led projects addressing urban flooding in Chicago, river mechanics, and sustainable hydropower solutions.

Education:

• Ph.D. Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota (1989)
• M.Sc. Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota (1985)
• Ing. Dipl. Water Resources, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina (1982)

Research Interests:

• Sustainable hydropower and low-head dams
• Urban flood mitigation in cities like Chicago, Buenos Aires, and Florence
• CFD modeling of rivers and hydraulic structures
• Bedform dynamics and channel restoration
• Contaminant transport and water quality modeling
• Submarine debris flows and CO2 disposal
• Oil spill mechanics and sediment interaction

Awards: Over 20 honors, including the M. Selim Yalin Lifetime Achievement Award (2017), Hunter Rouse Hydraulic Engineering Award, and multiple ASCE prizes. He is an ASCE Distinguished Member and Fellow of EWRI.

Advising & Service: Supervised 35 PhD and 50 M.S. students. Led major projects like the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP) for Chicago flood control. Served on expert panels for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and international initiatives (e.g., St. Clair River Sedimentation Study).

Labs/Teams: Director of the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Lab and founder of CIEGRi (Argentina). Collaborates globally on hydraulics and environmental engineering.