Dr Kthleen Smits is currently serving as a professor in Civil Engineering, The University of Texas at Arlington (Arlington, TX, United States) and Associate Director, Environmental Engineering, Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Lt Colonel, U.S Air Force. Her research areas are mainly focused on improving land mine detection capabilities for the U.S. Army through the investigation of shallow-subsurface multiphase processes affected by heat and mass flux dynamics at the land/atmospheric interfaces. Her research interests further include providing answers to questions of importance to many food, water, and energy challenges that the world faces today to include climate change, sustainability, and energy shortages. Prof Smits’s research spans a range of scales and applications but is unified around the theme of water, energy and the environment.

She is a member of Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP), American Geophysical Union (AGU), International Society of Porous Media (InterPore), American Society of Civil Engineer (ASCE), Society of American Military Engineers (SAME), and Society of Women in Engineering (SWE). She obtained her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering, from the Colorado School of Mines (Golden, United States).