Dr. Alexandra (Sasha) Richey McLarty

Education

• Ph.D. Civil Engineering – Hydrology and Water Resources Specialty, University of California, Irvine, 2014
• M.S. Civil Engineering – Hydrology and Water Resources Specialty, University of California, Irvine, 2012
• B.S. Civil Engineering – Environmental and Water Studies Specialty, Stanford University, 2008

Professional Experience

• Short-term Consultant, The World Bank, January 2011 – 2018
• Assistant Research Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State University, January 2017 – December 2017
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State University, July 2015 – December 2016

Awards

• Outstanding Junior Faculty Researcher, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State University, 2018-2019
• Alaska Airlines Travel Grant Recipient for Food, Energy, Water Imagine Tomorrow, 2016
• NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, Graduate awardee, 2012-2014

Research Interests

Dr. Richey’s research leverages a diversity of tools and data to better answer three questions: How much water do we have? How much water do we use? How much water do we need? Her main interest is in identifying and quantifying the interaction between human and physical systems, with a focus on groundwater and large-scale hydrologic systems. Currently, Dr. Richey’s research combines satellite and in situ observations of hydrologic systems into modeling and decision support frameworks over large regional scales, including in the Columbia Plateau Aquifer in the Pacific Northwest (USA) and in Central Asia. She mainly focuses on complex groundwater systems, where interdisciplinary approaches are necessary to understand both natural and anthropogenic drivers of aquifer change. She enjoys working at the interface of research and water resources management and has contributed to multiple “science diplomacy” efforts in the United States and internationally to advance the role of scientific research in decision making.

Projects

• “2021 Long-term Water Supply and Demand Forecast,” Department of Ecology
• “Participatory Measurement, Monitoring, and Management of Groundwater in Northeast Brazil,” UKAID administered by Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) Metaketa III
• “Validating a Glacier Melt Toolbox for High Mountain Asia using a remote-sensing-driven data integration framework,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• “Increasing Regional to Global-Scale Resilience in FEW Systems through Coordinated Management of Storage in Concert with Innovations in Technology and Institutions,” National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Understanding the role of groundwater for drought mitigation in the Pacific Northwest
• Improving the estimation of groundwater storage change from remotely-sensed observations

Teaching

• CE 456 – Sustainable Development in Water Resources
• CE 416 – Hydraulic Engineering Laboratory
• CE 451/551 – Open Channel Flow

Publications

• Loomis BD, Richey AS, Arendt AA, Appana R, Deweese Y-JC, Forman BA, Kumar SV, Sabaka TJ and Shean DE (2019) Water Storage Trends in High Mountain Asia. Front. Earth Sci. 7:235. doi: 10.3389/feart.2019.00235
• Yoon Y, Kumar SV, Forman BA, Zaitchik BF, Kwon Y, Qian Y, Rupper S, Maggioni V, Houser P, Kirschbaum D, Richey A, Arendt A, Mocko D, Jacob J, Bhanja S and Mukherjee A (2019) Evaluating the Uncertainty of Terrestrial Water Budget Components Over High Mountain Asia. Front. Earth Sci. 7:120. doi: 10.3389/feart.2019.00120
• Liu M, Adam JC, Richey AS, Zhu Z, Myneni RB (2018) Factors controlling changes in evapotranspiration, runoff, and soil moisture over the conterminous U.S.: Accounting for vegetation dynamics. J Hydrol 565:123–137.
• Richey, A. S., F. Thomas, M.-H. Lo, J. T. Reager, J. S. Famiglietti, K. Voss, S. Swenson, and M. Rodell (2016), Reply to comment by Sahoo et al. on “Quantifying renewable groundwater stress with GRACE”, Water Resour. Res., 52, doi:10.1002/2015WR018329. (Google Scholar: 5 citations)
• Richey, Alexandra S. (2015). Moving from Aquifer Stress to Sustainable Management with Remote Sensing and Local Knowledge. San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science, 13(3). jmie_sfews_28789. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4vc9m0v7
• Richey, A. S., B. F. Thomas, M.-H. Lo, J. T. Reager, J. S. Famiglietti, K. Voss, S. Swenson, and M. Rodell (2015), Quantifying renewable groundwater stress with GRACE, Water Resour. Res., 51, doi:1002/2015WR017349.
• Richey, A. S., B. F. Thomas, M.-H. Lo, J. S. Famiglietti, S. Swenson, and M. Rodell (2015), Uncertainty in global groundwater storage estimates in a Total Groundwater Stress framework, Water Resour. Res., 51, doi:1002/2015WR017351.