Biography

Dr. Witold F. Krajewski is the Rose & Joseph Summers Chair in Water Resources Engineering at the University of Iowa.  He is also Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Research Engineer at IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering.  In 2009, he was appointed Director of the Iowa Flood Center.

Dr. Krajewski received MS (1976) and PhD (1980) degrees from Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, in environmental engineering and water resources systems.  He was a Research Hydrologist at the Office of Hydrology of the National Weather Service until 1987, when he joined the University of Iowa.

Dr. Krajewski’s scientific interests concern measuring, modeling, and forecasting precipitation using radar and satellite remote sensing.  His current research focuses on understanding the genesis and evolution of floods through field data and modeling, and the quantification of uncertainty in hydrologic prediction at a range of temporal and spatial scales.  Dr. Krajewski has published over 270 papers in refereed journals on these topics.

Dr. Krajewski was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021.  The same year he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  He is also a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society, and in 2018, he received the AMS Hydrologic Sciences Medal.  He has served on numerous committees and panels of these and other professional organizations, and on the editorial boards of several journals.  He was editor of Advances in Water Resources. In 2012, he was chair of the Board of Directors of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. Since 2015, he has been a Distinguished Fellow of the Kosciuszko Foundation Collegium of Eminent Scientists and in 2021 he received the Tadeusz Sendzimir Applied Sciences Award from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America.  In 2010, Dr. Krajewski received the State of Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, and in 2012, he received the University of Iowa Graduate College Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award in Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Engineering. In 2019, he received the University of Iowa’s Michael J. Brody Award for Faculty Excellence in Service and in 2023 he delivered the University's 40th Annual Presidential Lecture.