ERM Surfacewater Modeling Group

ERM Surfacewater Modeling Group Staff

Edward M. Buchak, P.H. has civil engineering degrees from MIT and the University of Pennsylvania. His experience since 1972 has been in developing and applying hydrodynamic and water quality models to rivers, lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, and coastal waterbodies. Ed contributes expertise in problem definition, project management, data examination, modeling, and presentations to clients, stakeholders, and the general public. He has worked extensively for the electric utility, manufacturing, mining, oil and gas industries as well as for public agencies. He manages the Surfacewater Modeling Group.

Venkat S. Kolluru completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Ocean Engineering from the University of Rhode Island and is the technical director for the SMG. His experience since 1991 has been in the development and application of 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D hydrodynamic models for water quality, sediment transport, toxic fate, and oil and chemical spill impacts, integrating SMG's modeling activities within the Generalized Environmental Modeling System for Surfacewaters (GEMSS^®) framework.

Michael J. Fichera, P.E. received a B.S. and M.E. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Manhattan College. He is a project manager with over fourteen years experience performing environmental impact and natural resource damage assessments, specializing in oil spill, offshore drilling, dredging, and water quality modeling, as well as 316 permitting. His current projects include assessment of dissolved oil toxicity using COSIM, the oil spill assessment component of GEMSS^®

George Krallis, P.E., P.H., Ph.D. received his degrees in civil engineering from Lehigh and Penn State. He has worked extensively since 1988 in hydrology and hydraulics. George is an experienced project manager, and has applied hydrodynamic and water quality models to rivers, lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, and coastal water bodies, serving the electric utility, manufacturing, oil and gas industries, and public agencies.

Brandon Luzar received his B.S. in Engineering from Swarthmore College and is currently working towards a Masters at Villanova University in Civil Engineering. Brandon is an engineer-in-training with experience in water quality and hydrodynamic model applications, watershed model applications, TMDL reports, discharge model applications, and hydrologic & hydraulic studies. He has worked on projects serving utilities, manufacturers, transportation companies, and public agencies.

Shwet Prakash received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and his M.S. from SUNY Buffalo. Since 2001, he has worked extensively with hydrodynamic and transport models. Shwet applies, researches, writes and tests improvements to GEMSS^® hydrodynamic, transport, water quality, chemical fate, particle tracking, and sediment transport algorithms, programming in FORTRAN, C, and Visual Basic.

Irene Shang is a software developer and system analyst with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Xian University of Science and Technology. She has more than eleven years of programming experience in database design and implementation, and graphical user interface design and coding in Visual Basic. Irene is a key developer of the GEMSS^® software, focusing primarily on user interface, database access, and visualization components.

Staff Contact Information

Edward M. Buchak	610.524.3650	E-mail
Venkat S. Kolluru	610.524.3654	E-mail
Michael Fichera	610.524.3603	E-mail
George Krallis	610.524.3662	E-mail
Brandon Luzar	610.524.3706	E-mail
Shwet Prakash	610.524.3692	E-mail
Irene Shang	610.524.3670	E-mail