Lauren E. Grimley is a Surface Water Hydrologist with The Water Institute of the Gulf. She has experience using hydrologic and hydraulic modeling software and geospatial tools for streamflow forecasting and engineering and planning analysis. Her research interests aim at developing tools that improve the quantification of flood hazards and the associated risks.

Grimley has an M.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering with a focus on water resources from the University of Iowa at Iowa City. At the Iowa Flood Center, she worked with researchers to develop advanced tools to improve Iowa’s flood preparedness and resiliency. Her research focused on gaining a better understanding of how urban rainfall runoff dynamics and spatiotemporal variability of radar rainfall impact streamflow predictions.

Grimley spent two summers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where she participated in the National Water Center (NWC) Summer Innovators Program organized by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) both as a Research Fellow and a Course Coordinator. She collaborated intensively with students and experts to develop and work on projects designed to contribute to the National Water Center’s goals of enhancing water related products and decision support services across the country. Her project involved analyzing the computational performance and accuracy of an urban, hyper-resolution model to simulate streamflow using varying mesh resolutions and structure. She also collaborated with researchers at the NWC to develop the geospatial tools and framework to evaluate model outputs to high water marks.