May 2018: Executive MBA, Tippie College of Business, The University of Iowa (With Distinction)

May 2018: Certificate in Leadership, Tippie College of Business, The University of Iowa (With Distinction)

August 2008:  PhD, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Iowa

July 2003:  Degree in Civil Engineering, Universita’ degli Studi “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy

July 2020–present:  Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Iowa

February 2018–August 2022:  Director, IIHR–Hydroscience & Engineering, University of Iowa

August 2017–February 2018:  Interim Director, IIHR–Hydroscience & Engineering, University of Iowa

December 2016–August 2017:  Associate Director, IIHR–Hydroscience & Engineering, University of Iowa

July 2016–June 2020:  Associate Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Iowa

July 2016–August 2017:  Director of Graduate Studies, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Iowa

June 2012–June 2016:  Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Iowa

August 2008–May 2012:  Willis Research Network Fellow

August 2011–May 2012:  Associate Research Scholar, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Princeton University

February 2012–May 2012:  Lecturer, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Princeton University

August 2008–July 2011:  Research Associate, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Princeton University

August 2003–July 2008:  Graduate Research Assistant, Hydrometeorology Group, IIHR–Hydroscience & Engineering, University of Iowa, Adviser: Prof. W.F. Krajewski

Hydroclimatology and hydrometeorology; Predictions and projections; Extreme events; Hurricanes; Atmospheric rivers; Applied statistics.

My core research interests revolve around process-driven flood frequency and projections. In the literature, most of the studies on flood frequency analyses treat flood extremes as coming from a single population. However, the approach I have been pursuing recognizes that not all flood events are coming from the same population, but rather that those events were caused by different flood-generating mechanisms, each one of them expected to control different parts of the flood peak distribution. As detailed in Kim and Villarini (2023; Advances in Water Resources), we proposed and developed a novel statistical approach to obtain flood frequency estimation that is reflective of the flood peak seasonality (as a proxy for generating mechanisms) across the contiguous United States and showed that this approach performs very well.

In another paper (Barth et al. 2019; Journal of Hydrologic Engineering), we performed this kind of analyses with an emphasis on atmospheric rivers and within the constraints of Bulletin 17C (i.e., the federal guidelines to determine flood frequency estimates); beside the novel methodological approach and expanding on the most recent federal guidelines, it also speaks about my interests in weather phenomena like tropical cyclones and atmospheric rivers.

In addition to the novelty in process attribution and statistical methods, this process-driven flood frequency method represents a viable way to investigate how flooding is projected to change in a warmer climate: we can use climate model outputs to examine how the drivers of these major flood agents are projected to change and then use this information to infer how flood frequencies are bound to change. This is because we cannot blindly extrapolate past trends or use the lack of detected trends in the historical records as evidence for lack of changes in the future (Villarini and Wasko, 2021;Nature Climate Change).

American Geophysical Union (AGU)
American Meteorological Society (AMS)

Villarini, G., Increasing Frequency of Flood Events across the Central United States: A Hierarchy of Whys, Beijing Normal University, August 24, 2020.

Villarini, G., Increasing Frequency of Flood Events across the Central United States: A Hierarchy of Whys, Arizona State University, March 18, 2020.

Villarini, G., Increasing Frequency of Flood Events across the Central United States: A Hierarchy of Whys, University of Oxford, February 7, 2020.

Villarini, G., Looking Back to Move Forward: Future Changes in the Frequency of Flood Events across the Central United States, University of California Los Angeles, October 22, 2019.

Villarini, G., Hydrometeorological Extremes and Tropical Cyclones, University of Central Florida, Florida, October 9, 2019.

Villarini, G., Hydrometeorological Extremes and Tropical Cyclones, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand, June 24, 2019.

Villarini, G., Hydrometeorological Extremes and Tropical Cyclones, CMCC, Bologna, Italy, June 27, 2019.

Villarini, G., Looking Backward to Move Forward: Future Changes in the Frequency of Flood Events, University of Padua, Padua, Italy, June 26, 2019.

Villarini, G., Hydrometeorological Extremes and Tropical Cyclones, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy, June 24, 2019.

Villarini, G., Flooding and Heavy Rainfall Associated with Tropical Cyclones, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, February 19, 2019.

Villarini, G., Flooding Across the Central United States: Ieri, Oggi e Domani, CMCC, Bologna, Italy, June 21, 2018.

Villarini, G., Past and future changes in streamflow in the U.S. Midwest: Bridging across time scales, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, November 10, 2017.

Villarini, G., Flooding Across the Central United States: Past, Present and Future, CMCC, Bologna, Italy, June 16, 2016.

Villarini, G., Flooding Across the Central United States: Past, Present and Future, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA, October 6, 2015.

Villarini, G., The Changing Nature of Flooding Across the Central United States, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, September 11, 2015.

Villarini, G., The Changing Nature of Flooding Across the Central United States, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, August 14, 2015.

Villarini, G., Flooding over the United States: A climatic perspective and the role of tropical cyclones, Bermuda Insurance Institute, Bermuda, October 28, 2014.

Villarini, G., Flooding over the Central United States, U.S. Geological Survey, IA, August 14, 2014.

Villarini, G., Flooding over the Central United States, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NJ, June 20, 2013.

Villarini, G., Is it going to rain tomorrow? Heavy rainfall and flooding over the Central United States, Luther College, Decorah, IA, April 4, 2013.

Villarini, G., Is it going to rain tomorrow? Heavy rainfall and flooding over the Central United States, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA, March 19, 2013.

Villarini, G., What do the observational records tell us about flooding and climate change?, The National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, July 20, 2012.

Villarini, G., A data-driven perspective on flooding and changing climate, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, March 8, 2012.

Villarini, G., A data-driven perspective on flooding and changing climate, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, February 29, 2012.

Villarini, G., Flooding and changing climate: A data driven perspective, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, September 2, 2011.

Villarini, G., Extreme events and changing climate: What does the data tell us?, Aggravated Natural Disaster Seminar, Chartis Insurance, New York, NY, July 15, 2011.

Villarini, G., Flooding, tropical cyclones, and climate change in the Eastern United States, Columbia University, New York, NY, April 8, 2010.

Villarini, G., Flooding, tropical cyclones, and climate change in the Eastern United States, James J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory, Sandy Hook, NJ, March 11, 2010.

Villarini, G., Flood frequency in the Eastern United States, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NJ, July 15, 2009.

Villarini, G., Empirically-based modeling of radar-rainfall uncertainties, University of Connecticut, CT, April 11, 2008.

Krajewski, W.F., G.J. Ciach, and G. Villarini, Towards Probabilistic Quantitative Precipitation WSR-88D Algorithms: Data Analysis and Development of Ensemble Model Generator: Phase 4, final report, 202 pp., NWS Office of Hydrologic Development, Silver Spring, MD, 2005.

October 2020 – present: Editor-in-Chief for Advances in Water Resources

July 2018 – present: Member of the Iowa Water Center Advisory Board.

January 2017 – Representative of the University of Iowa to the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI).

March 2015 – September 2020: Associate Editor for Advances in Water Resources.

April 2014 – present: Associate Editor for Journal of Climate.

November 2015 – 2016: member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Flash Flood Statement Update Team.

January 2011 – 2014: Member of the U.S.-CLIVAR Working Group on Hurricanes and Climate.

July 2010 – 2015: Member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Precipitation Committee.

Co-chair of the “Hydroclimatic Extremes: Estimation and Forecasting” session; AGU 2013 Fall Meeting.

Invited Participant, NOAA National Climate Assessment Forum on Heatwaves, Cold Waves, Floods, and Droughts, 2011.

November 2010: Member of a National Academy of Sciences delegation meeting with members of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

Article reviewer for: Advances in Water Resources; Annals of Geophysics; Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences; Atmospheric Research; Atmospheric Science Letters; Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal; Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society; Climate Dynamics; Climatic Change; Earth-science Reviews; Earth System Dynamics; Environmental Engineering and Management Journal; Environmental Research Letters; Environmental Science & Technology; Geophysical Research Letters; Hydrological Processes; Hydrological Sciences Journal; Hydrology and Earth System Sciences; IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters; IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing; International Journal of Climatology; International Journal of River Basin Management; Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology; Journal of Atmospheric Sciences; Journal of Climate; Journal of Flood Risk Management; Journal of Geophysical Research; Journal of Hydro-Environment Research; Journal of Hydrologic Engineering; Journal of Hydrology; Journal of Hydrometeorology; Journal of Mountain Science; Journal of the American Water Resources Association; Monthly Weather Review; Natural Hazards; Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences; Natural Hazards Review; Nature; Nature Climate Change; Nature Communications; Nature Geoscience; One Earth; Philosophical Transactions A; Physical Geography; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society; Regional Environmental Changes; Science; ScienceAsia; Scientific Reports; Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment; Tellus A; Water Resources Management; Water Resources Research; Weather and Forecasting; Weather, Climate, and Society.

Proposal reviewer for: City University of New York; Department of Defense; Department of Energy; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG); Global and Regional Environmental Research; National Science Foundation; Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research; U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; U.S. Geological Survey.

Book reviewer for: American Geophysical Union, Springer.