Please join us in welcoming Jim Lewis as a new employee of Baird & Associates. Jim specializes in river hydraulics, hydrology, and sediment transport.
Jim’s expertise in large river dynamics adds to Baird’s existing range of experts in this area, and Jim is supporting our innovative, science-based engineering on major projects on the Mississippi River and beyond. Jim is also a senior member of the Baird team delivering our US Federal government contracts across multiple regions.
Jim received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Civil Engineering after finishing his bachelor’s degrees at University of Kentucky and Asbury University. His doctoral thesis focused on water and air interactions within stormwater collection systems. He began working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Detroit District in 2010 on Great Lakes hydraulics and hydrology projects. Jim became the lead forecaster of Great Lakes water levels and participated in international coordination through the IJC. Much of his time was focused on analyzing large-scale hydrologic processes of evaporation, precipitation, and runoff. Jim also developed a HEC-RAS model of the Detroit River, HEC-HMS models in parts of the Great Lakes Basin, developed several computer programming routines to streamline work, and performed some field inspections of federal locks and dams.
In 2014, Jim and his family moved down to Vicksburg, Mississippi as he started working in the River Engineering Branch of the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory at the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center. Jim developed a sediment transport model of the Atchafalaya River to evaluate how sedimentation could impact water surface elevations into future decades. Jim also worked with a continental-scale model called RAPID of the entire Mississippi River Basin to simulate the past streamflow conditions and also future projected conditions from global climate models. In a project for the Columbia River System Operations, Jim automated complex modeling software (HEC-RAS and CE-QUAL-W2) to streamline the simulation of a number of system alternatives. He also analyzed the efficiencies of dredging management strategies for the Mississippi River.
In November of 2018, Jim became the Director of the Mississippi River Science and Technology Office for the USACE Mississippi Valley Division. There he provided scientific leadership on important topics to local, state, and national water resource managers and led collaborations with USACE District Offices, the U.S. Geological Survey, and various federal and academic researchers. He managed the Mississippi River Geomorphology and Potamology Program (potamology is the study of rivers) and was responsible for more than 40 projects across a range of scientific areas. He discovered innovative ways of measuring and managing water and sediment resources.
A couple of Jim’s large recent projects were the Mississippi River and Tributaries Flowline Assessment and the Old, Mississippi, Atchafalaya, and Red Rivers (OMAR) Assessment. The Flowline Assessment re-evaluated the hydrology and flood water surfaces of the project design flood for the Mississippi River system. The OMAR Assessment investigated the water and sediment balance of the four rivers near the Old River Control Complex, and how the rivers would respond to various operational changes. Summaries of these two projects are: here and here.
Jim’s wife’s name is Alison (registered nurse), and they have four children ranging in ages from 3 to 12. Jim loves games (especially strategy board games), woodworking, being outdoors, and spending time with family.