Julie Coonrod Named UNM Dean of Graduate Studies

Julie Coon­rod

UNM Provost Chaouki Abdal­lah has announced the appoint­ment of Pro­fes­sor Julie Coon­rod as Dean of the Office of Grad­u­ate Stud­ies effec­tive Jan. 1, 2013.

“I am pleased to announce Dr. Coon­rod as Dean of the Office of Grad­u­ate Stud­ies,” said Abdal­lah. “She brings to the posi­tion a lot of pas­sion for grad­u­ate edu­ca­tion and a great deal of expe­ri­ence work­ing and con­duct­ing research in an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary envi­ron­ment. She will do an excel­lent job advanc­ing our goals to trans­form grad­u­ate edu­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mexico.”

An Albu­querque native, Coon­rod has a BE degree from Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­sity, a M.S. from UNM and a Ph.D in Civil Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Austin. She con­sulted for a local Civil Engi­neer­ing firm in Albu­querque and Santa Fe for 5 years prior to her Ph.D. work.

Coon­rod has been with UNM for 16 years, teach­ing under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate courses related to water resources engi­neer­ing. She teaches a grad­u­ate level course that empha­sizes the mod­el­ing capa­bil­i­ties of geo­graphic infor­ma­tion sys­tems to stu­dents seek­ing a vari­ety of degrees. She par­tic­i­pates in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­grams includ­ing the Water Resources Pro­gram and the IGERT Fresh­wa­ter Sci­ences Pro­gram.  Addi­tion­ally, she recently co-taught Women, Water, & Work with mul­ti­ple departments.

Coonrod’s  research focuses on issues relat­ing to the Mid­dle Rio Grande, includ­ing bosque evap­o­tran­spi­ra­tion esti­mates, cli­mate change impacts on stream flow, and the inter­sec­tion of restora­tion & flood con­trol goals. She fre­quently col­lab­o­rates with fac­ulty in Biol­ogy, Earth & Plan­e­tary Sci­ences, and Economics.

Coon­rod directs the Hydraulics Lab where phys­i­cal mod­els of storm water struc­tures for the local flood con­trol author­ity are con­tin­u­ously built.  She has super­vised over 30 grad­u­ate stu­dents. She is a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Civil Engi­neers and the Amer­i­can Water Resources Association.

A big Lobo fan, Coon­rod fre­quents bas­ket­ball, soc­cer and foot­ball games.

Media con­tact: Karen Went­worth (505) 277‑5627; email: kwent2@unm.edu