Tianfang Xu

Tianfang Xu is an Assistant Professor at the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University, with affiliations to the Water Institute and Global Futures Scientists and Scholars. She holds a B.S. in Geotechnical Engineering (Nanjing University, 2010), and M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 & 2016).

• Research Focus: Numerical simulation of groundwater systems, uncertainty quantification, and machine learning applications in hydrology.
• Labs: Leads a research group integrating process-based and data-driven models to enhance water resource predictions under global change.
• Teaching: Instructs courses on groundwater hydrology, fluid mechanics, and advanced research topics in civil engineering.

Publication Trends: Recent work emphasizes hybrid physics-ML modeling for complex watersheds, remote sensing in irrigation monitoring, and structural error quantification in groundwater predictions. Her research bridges computational modeling with real-world sustainability challenges.

• Key Projects:
  • Snow-dominated karst watershed modeling
  • Agricultural managed aquifer recharge assessment
  • Crop irrigation monitoring using satellite data
  • Urban-agricultural water use in megacities