Enrique Orozco López, Ph.D., joined the Engineering School for Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment (ESSIE) and the Center for Coastal Solutions (CCS) as a Postdoctoral Associate in January 2022. Along with Dr. David Kaplan, and a team of CCS-affiliated scientists, Enrique is investigating how water and nutrients from Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River Watershed impact coastal water quality resulting in frequent harmful algal blooms. This work is part of a large multi-institute project funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Enrique’s research focuses in modeling the Caloosahatchee River Watershed hydrology, in applying physically-based neural networks to boost models’ calibration and testing efficiencies, and in the sequential integration of the fate and transport models from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River Watershed and its Estuary.

Enrique earned his Ph.D at the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, University of Florida, in 2020. His dissertation was a state-of-the-art fusion of numerical modeling, laboratory experiments, and field work in the Kenian Savannah, investigating nonlinear subsurface preferential flow and transport in riparian buffers. Enrique has also been involved in developing forecasting models for multi-output and multivariate time series by using machine learning and custom neural networks.

Enrique is a native of Spain from Murcia. He loves mountains, water bodies, and aquatic sports. He is passionate about bringing state-of-the-art technologies and techniques to alleviate water related issues. As a matter of fact, his goal since he was a graduate student is to help reduce the major water quality issues of El Mar Menor, the biggest salty lagoon in Europe, and a place where he found enormous joy during his childhood family trips.