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Mike Johnson, PhD

Chief Data Scientist @ Lynker

My name is J. Michael Johnson, but everyone calls me Mike.

As the Chief Data Scientist at Lynker, I'm deeply engaged in the field of hydroinformatics, drawing inspiration from my passion for geospatial science. My expertise lies in merging data-intensive computational geography with water resources research, all through a geospatial lens.

Embedded within NOAA's National Water Center's mission to revolutionize water modeling, I'm leading the hydrofabric development for the Next Generation National Water Model and Flood Inundation Mapping programs. At the heart of my approach lies the development of cutting-edge open-source software solutions, fostering collaboration across the scientific community, and the pursuit of cutting-edge research. With partners at Lynker, NOAA, and the USGS, we're not just defining a new suite of federal hydroinformatics products; we're redefining how we understand, represent, and manage water resources on a national scale.

Throughout my career, I've published in journals like WRR, Nature Scientific Data, Science Advances, EMS, and JGR Atmospheres and am eager to continue pushing the boundaries of what's possible in hydrology, data science and geospatial analysis.

So if you're ready to make waves in hydroinformatics, let's join forces!

Three latest publications:

[3] Johnson, J. M., Afshari, S., & Rad, A. M. (2024). AHGestimation: An R package for computing robust, mass preserving hydraulic geometries and rating curves. Journal of Open Source Software, 9(96), 6145.
[2] Johnson, J. M., Eyelade, D., Singh-Mohudpur, J., Rad, A. M., Coll, J., Spies, R., & Yeghiazarian, L. (2024). Enhancing Synthetic Rating Curve Development Through Empirical Roughness Built for Hydrofabric Datasets. Authorea Preprints.
[1] Johnson, J.M., Fang, S., Sankarasubramanian A., Modaresi Rad, A., Kindl da Cunha, L., Jennings, K.S., Clarke K.C., Mazrooei, A., and Yeghiazarian, L. (2024). Comprehensive analysis of the NOAA National Water Model: A call for heterogeneous formulations and diagnostic model selection. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

2023 - Present
Chief Data Scientist: Lynker
2019 - 2023
Water Resources Data Scientist: Lynker
2022 - Present
Hydrofabric Technical Director: NOAA Office of Water Prediction
2024 - Present
Affiliate Associate: Colorado State University
2023 - Present
Affiliate Graduate Faculty: University of Alabama
2019 - 2022
Principal Data Scientist: Urban Flooding Open Knowledge Network
2021
University of California, Santa Barbara, California
> Degree: PhD Geography
2015

Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California
> Degree: B.S. Geography and Anthropology
> Honors: Cum Laude
> Minors:
Watershed Management Emphasis
GIS for Agriculture
Statistics
Environmental Studies
Economics
Visiting Researcher The VU Amsterdam Amsterdam, The Netherlands
NCAR Research Applications Laboratory, Boulder, CO
NOAA National Water Center Tuscaloosa, Alabama
For a full list of publications please see
StarsStars


📚 Projects 🧑 Role ⭐ Stars 🍴 Forks 🛎 Issues 📬 Pull requests
mikejohnson51/AOI Lead Developer Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests
mikejohnson51/climateR Lead Developer Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests
mikejohnson51/climateR-catalogs   Lead Developer Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests
mikejohnson51/zonal Lead Developer Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests
mikejohnson51/nwmTools Lead Developer Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests
DOI-USGS/nhdplusTools Author Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests
DOI-USGS/dataRetrieval Author Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests
NOAA-OWP/hydrofabric Lead Developer Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests
mikejohnson51/AHGestimation Lead Developer Stars Forks Issues Pull Requests