Rate My Professor Tim Peterson

Associate Professor Tim Peterson serves as Senior Lecturer in Environmental Engineering and Environmental Engineering Course Leader in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering at Monash University. He possesses over 17 years of experience in hydrological and hydrogeological research and consulting. His academic qualifications include a PhD in Catchment Hydrology from the University of Melbourne, awarded in 2010 for his thesis on multiple hydrological steady states and resilience; a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering with First Class Honours; and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics, both from Monash University. Throughout his career at Monash University, Peterson has advanced through academic positions, achieving promotion to Associate Professor.

Peterson's research centers on detecting long-term changes in catchment hydrological processes and their drivers early enough to enable societal action, employing statistical analyses of commonly available surface water and groundwater data. His influential contributions include the 2021 Science publication 'Watersheds may not recover from drought,' which revealed persistent shifts in rainfall-runoff dynamics following Australia's Millennium Drought. Other significant works encompass 'Hydrological Shifts Threaten Water Resources' (Water Resources Research, 2022), 'Identifying Causal Interactions Between Groundwater and Streamflow' (Water Resources Research, 2022), and 'Groundwater Sensitivity to Climate Variations Across Australia' (Water Resources Research, 2023). With over 2,200 citations on Google Scholar, his research has substantial impact in hydrology. He developed HydroSight, an open-source tool for data-driven hydrogeological analysis. Peterson's honors include election as a Fellow of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand in 2020 and the Monash Department of Civil Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award in 2024.