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In forested watersheds, suspended sediment concentration (SSC) is an important parameter that impacts water quality and beneficial use. Water quality also has impacts beyond the stream channel, as elevated SSC can violate Indigenous sovereignty, treaty rights, and environmental law. To address elevated SSC, watershed partners must understand the dynamics of the sediment regime in the basins they steward. Collection of additional data is expensive, so this study presents modeling and analysis techniques to leverage existing data on SSC. Using data from the South Fork Clearwater River in Idaho County, Idaho, USA, we modeled SSC over water years 1986–2011 and we applied regression techniques to evaluate correlations between SSC and natural disturbances (channel-building flow events) and anthropogenic disturbances (timber harvesting, hazardous fuel management, controlled burns, and wildfire). Analysis shows that SSC did not change over the period of record. This study provides a monitoring program design to support future decision making leading to reductions in SSC. 

A numerical inverse method called FlowPaths is presented to solve for the hydraulic conductivity field of an isotropic heterogeneous porous medium from a known specific discharge field (and constant-head boundary conditions). This method makes possible a new approach to reactive transport experiments, aimed at understanding the dynamic spatial and temporal evolution of hydraulic conductivity, which simultaneously record the evolving reaction and the evolving flow geometry. This inverse method assumes steady, two-dimensional flow through a square matrix of grid blocks. A graph-theoretical approach is used to find a set of flow paths through the porous medium using the known components of the specific discharge, where every vertex is traversed by at least one path from the upstream high-head boundary to the downstream low-head boundary. Darcy’s law is used to create an equation for the unknown head drop across each edge. Summation of these edge equations along each path through the network generates a set of linearly independent head-drop equations that is solved directly for the hydraulic conductivity field. FlowPaths is verified by generating 12,740 hydraulic conductivity fields of varying size and heterogeneity, calculating the corresponding specific discharge field for each, and then using that specific discharge field to estimate the underlying hydraulic conductivity field. When estimates from FlowPaths are compared to the simulated hydraulic conductivity fields, the inverse method is demonstrated to be accurate and numerically stable. Accordingly, within certain limitations, FlowPaths can be used in field or laboratory applications to find hydraulic conductivity from a known velocity field. 

This design case describes a Welcome Academy for New Faculty in Engineering. To situate the design, this work is motivated by the documented need to make STEM education more inclusive. This need has prompted extensive research on best practices for inclusive teaching, but less is known about how to translate that research into actual teaching practice. This design case addresses that difficulty. Influenced by Thaler and Sunstein’s theory of nudging, the Welcome Academy resets the default to expect inclusive teaching. To develop the design, we organized an off-campus summit to solicit input from current engineering faculty on the question, “What do new engineering faculty need to know about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)?” That input guided the creation of a four-hour workshop, delivered the morning after campus-wide new faculty orientation, that included an icebreaker, basic campus demographics, curated DEI-related resources, a campus tour emphasizing historical power dynamics, and presentations by current engineering students. To depict the experience of the design, we describe the final implementation, which varied from the design at points, and the unanimously positive feedback from new faculty. That feedback, however, was not the result of a flawless implementation: We also describe a number of failures that will improve subsequent iterations of the Welcome Academy, emphasizing the importance of communication, respect, and flexibility. 

This work describes an effort to nudge engineering faculty toward adopting known best practices for inclusive teaching through a program called Engineering is Not Neutral: Transforming Instruction via Collaboration and Engagement Faculty (ENNTICE). This monthly faculty learning community (FLC) followed the three-year structure of the Colorado Equity Toolkit: Year 1 (reported in 2022) focused on self-inquiry including reflection; Year 2 (reported in 2023) focused on course design including training new engineering faculty; Year 3 (reported in the current paper) focused on building community. The emphasis on building community allows us to address our research question: To what degree does faculty participation in an FLC impact engineering college culture? Building community is measured through broadening participation by faculty in known best practices for inclusive teaching, including three elements of interest. First, we share within our engineering college the progress each department has made toward inclusive teaching participation, using thermometer-styled graphics like those used to illustrate progress toward a fundraising goal. Second, after reviewing certain sections of our engineering college’s plan for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), we submitted brainstormed ideas for implementation to our dean’s office. And third, after reviewing reports from student focus groups conducted in 2020/21, we evaluated progress and made recommendations for next steps; in this context the clarity and urgency of the student feedback is both motivational and difficult to ignore. The common theme in each of three elements is seeking to bridge the valley of neglect that so often divides scholarly work about DEI from concrete changes that benefit students, employers, and the broader community. 

Engineering faculty have heard the call to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into their classrooms, but many have asked the question: What can I do to advance DEI in my courses? This commentary provides one answer. We summarize our process to engineer DEI into an undergraduate fluid mechanics course following a process that included (1) participation in formal programs, (2) a systematic review of course materials, and (3) a weekly series of conversations that examined DEI in the context of engineering education from academic, social, and personal perspectives. The formal programs deepened our awareness; the systematic review identified improvements in the syllabus, nomenclature, and videos; but most importantly the conversations illuminated how the same technical material can be associated with vastly different cultural perspectives—a key point from the theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. We call for engineering faculty to seek opportunities to learn more of these perspectives, and then to reflect on how to improve their courses accordingly.