Sean McKenna

Dr. McKenna is the Executive Director of the Division of Hydrologic Sciences (DHS) at the Desert Research Institute (DRI). In this position he is responsible for success of a Division with ~120 Research Faculty and Scientists, Postdocs, and Students. DHS works to advance knowledge of hydrologic processes including ground water, surface water, evapotranspiration, precipitation and snowmelt as well as the impacts of climate change and wildfires on these processes and on society. Projects within DHS span the full spectrum from basic science to applied solutions.

Dr. McKenna has over 30 years of experience in initiating and completing research projects that translate basic science to impactful solutions. Prior to joining DRI, Dr. McKenna was a Senior Manager at IBM Research Europe from 2012 to 2020. IBM Research is the largest industrial research organization in the world and Dr. McKenna was hired to lead the water and energy areas for a newly formed Research Laboratory in Dublin, Ireland focused on Smarter Cities. This work evolved into broader research and applications in the areas of Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning and AI. Dr. McKennas responsibilities at IBM covered all aspects of initiating research projects and moving outcomes of those projects into solutions for academic, industrial and government sponsors. Parallel responsibilities included business development (Europe and Middle East), creation and review of intellectual property (IP), hiring and mentoring of research staff (MS and PhD) and coordinating projects with 12 other IBM Research labs as well as IBM Business Units.

From 1994-2012, Dr. McKenna was in the Geosciences Research and Development Group at Sandia National Laboratories. There he focused on numerical modeling, spatial statistics and applied mathematics to create solutions to problems in areas of Energy, Homeland Security, Environmental Restoration and Climate Change. His research interests led to solutions for the secure, long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste; real-time protection of water distribution systems from accidental and intentional contamination; and restoration of millions of acres of land potentially containing unexploded ordnance. Dr. McKennas work at Sandia included a two-year assignment in Singapore where he executed projects on water security, energy forecasting and national security.

Dr. McKennas research interests are within the areas of Hydrologeology (numerical modeling of ground water flow and solute transport with inverse parameter estimation in heterogeneous media), Geostatistics (integration of multiple data types and supports into spatial estimation and uncertainty quantification) and Hydroinformatics (online anomaly detection, long-term monitoring networks, leak detection).

Dr. McKenna has served as an Adjunct or Visiting Professor at New Mexico Tech (Dept. of Environmental Science), University of New Mexico (Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences; Dept. of Civil Engineering), National University of Singapore (Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering) and the University of Texas (Dept. of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering). He has taught ~15 short courses/workshops for national and international organizations in areas of water security, probabilistic risk assessment, and geostatistics.

Research Areas

• Ground water flow and solute transport modeling
• Parameter estimation
• Hydroinformatics
• Spatial Statistics

Awards and Honors

• IBM Industry Academy Member, nominated for expertise in Environment, Energy and Utility (EEU) Business Unit and service to IBM global EEU business development (2017)
• International Association of Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG) Distinguished Lecturer (2016)
• Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Award (Team Leader), Interagency Partnership Resulting in Technology Transfer (US Dept. of Energy with US EPA) (2011)
• R&D 100 Award, (Team Leader), CANARY Software selected as one of the 100 most significant technologies of 2010 by R&D Magazine (2010)