Peter K. Kitanidis

Peter K. Kitanidis is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering at Stanford University. His research focuses on groundwater flow, hydrologic forecasting, and stochastic inverse modeling, with applications to pollutant remediation and CO₂ storage monitoring.

Education:

• Diploma, National Technical University of Athens (1974)
• M.S., MIT (1976)
• Ph.D., MIT (1978)

Research Interests:

• Groundwater modeling and contaminant transport
• Hydraulic tomography and aquifer characterization
• Stochastic methods for uncertainty quantification
• Bioremediation and enhanced in-situ pollutant decay
• Dilution and mixing processes in heterogeneous media
• Real-time river flow forecasting

Scientific Awards:

• L.G. Straub Award (1979)
• W.L. Huber Research Prize (1994)
• ISI Highly Cited Researcher (2001)
• AGU Hydrologic Sciences Award (2011)
• ASCE Pioneers in Groundwater Lecturer (2011)

Advising and Grants:

• Advised 20+ PhD and MS students (1978–2018)
• Principal investigator on NSF, EPA, and DOE-funded projects
• Developed software for groundwater data analysis and CO₂ monitoring
• Contributed to bioremediation protocols and hydraulic tomography algorithms

Labs and Teams:

• Kitanidis Laboratory for groundwater crisis solutions
• Collaborated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Stanford Hydrogeology Group
• Mentored postdocs (2000–2017) in reactive transport and inverse modeling