Ryoko Araki | 荒木 稜香
Master of Science Student in Watershed Studies
Graduate Assistant
Department of Geography, San Diego State University
[Research Gate] [Google Scholar]
My research focuses on hydrology and water resources, especially understanding rainfall-runoff processes through observation and modeling at a watershed scale. I am particularly interested in soil moisture, how it controls water cycles, how to represent the process in modeling, and how to leverage the simulation results for flood and drought management.
My Master’s thesis aims to capture the dynamic signatures of soil moisture around the globe. By analyzing soil moisture data observed through clusters of sensors, the research addresses the question: how does the soil moisture respond to rainfall and climate variability under diverse land-uses? I hope to expand the methodology and findings to remotely-sensed soil moisture data by satellite in the future study.
Keywords
hydrology, surface-subsurface processes, soil moisture dynamics,
climate and land-use impacts, flood and droughts
Email
raraki8159(at)sdsu.edu
Latest News
17 Mar, 2020 Started Work-From-Home because of California state-wide Stay-At-Home order
28 Jan, 2020 The 2nd semster of Masters’ course has begun!
15 Jan, 2029 Visited France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment
Dec 7-13, 2019 Joined AGU2019 and Berkley Catchment Science Symposium
Oct 31, 2019 Opened the personal webpage
Education
M.Sc., Watershed (Aug 2019 – Present)
Department of Geography, San Diego State University
Academic supervisor: Dr. Hilary McMillan [webpage]
B.Eng., Civil (Apr. 2015 – Mar. 2019)
Undergraduate International Course Program in Civil Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University
Graduated with a top 20% honor
For students admitted until 2015, Kyoto University does not calculate the official GPA. According to international standards, my GPA would be calculated as 3.74/4.0
Featured in Student Voice
Thesis title: Characteristics of soil and hillslope runoff in humid tropical forest in Sumatra, Indonesia
Academic supervisor: Associate Professor Dr.Takahiro Sayama at
Disaster Prevention Research Institute [webpage]
Exchange Program (non-degree seeking, Sep. – Dec. 2017)
Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto
Awards and Honors
Research Excellence
The Best Presentation Award, the Japan Society of Civil Engineers Kansai Chapter Scientific Conference, 2019.5
Academic Excellence
The Excellent Student Award for students graduating with top 20% in the Civil Engineering at Kyoto University, 2019
Scholarship and Fellowships
San Diego State University Master’s Research Scholarship, 2020 [SDSU newsletter]
American Association of Japanese University Women Scholarship, 2020
Daishin Corporation Study Abroad Scholarship, 2019 [reports, in Japanese]
Japan Student Service Organization Study Abroad Scholarship, 2019
Kyoto University Yoshida Kishichiro Fellowship for top students in the International Program of Civil Engineering, 2017
Gyomusuper Japan Dream Foundation Study Abroad Scholarship, 2017
Japan Student Service Organization for Short-term Study Abroad Scholarship, 2017
Professional Experiences
Graduate Assistant
Department of Geography, San Diego State University
Aug 2019 – Present
Laboratory Assistant
Internship at Cw3E University of California, San Diego
Jun 2020 – Present
Teaching Assistant of the class “Experiment in Hydraulics”
Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University
Apr 2019 – Jul 2019
Technical Strength
Laboratory and field experiment skills
Basic skill in hydraulics and soil mechanics experiments
Expertized skills in soil moisture tension measurement, permeability test, particle size distribution test, infiltration test, cone-penetrometer test
Software & Tools
Hydrus-1D, MODFLOW, HBV model, DDS calibration, GLUE uncertainty estimation, ArcGIS, gnuplot, LaTeX
Programming
Matlab, Fortran, Python, R
Languages
English (Professional proficiency), Japanese (Native), Chinese (Intermediate)