Welcome to my Personal Website

About Me

Hello and thank you for visiting my website! I’m Fiona, a Ph.D. candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University, advised by Dr. Li Li. I expect to graduate in Summer 2027.

My research focus involves investigating how land use changes - such as deforestation, forest regeneration, and urbanization - alter hydrological flow paths and biogeochemical processes that affect stream water quality. I use a combination of reactive transport modeling, high-resolution sensor data, and machine learning approaches to explore the mechanisms and predictability of water quality responses. This work spans from understanding dissolved carbon dynamics in forested catchments to predicting eutrophication risks using deep learning models, offering a view of land use-water quality interactions under current and future conditions.

Education:

Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University (Expected 2027)
B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Connecticut (2022)

Selected Publications:

Liu, F., Liu, F. S., Kerins, D., Ramesh, S., Sullivan, P. L., Billings, S. A., … & Li, L. (2025). What Happens Below? Contrasting Subsurface Water and Dissolved Carbon Dynamics Beneath Young and Old Forests. Authorea Preprints.
Bisson, A. M., Liu, F., Moore, E. M., Briggs, M. A., & Helton, A. M. (2025). Preferential groundwater discharges along stream corridors are disregarded sources of greenhouse gases. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 130(3), e2024JG008395.

Gallery

With my incredible research peers at the 2025 Gordon Research Conference

A fantastic turnout at the 2025 Water Conference: Water on the Horizon. It was an honor to serve as the Water Council Student Representative and help organize this event alongside my amazing PAWS team.