ASCE has honored Ayse Kilic, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE, with the 2024 Royce J. Tipton Award for impactful and innovative development of satellite-based determination of irrigation water consumption; transformational contributions to geographic information systems in water resources; innovative, enthusiastic, and effective teaching in water resources; and mentoring to students, staff, and fellow engineering professionals, especially women.
Kilic has demonstrated exemplary service to the irrigation and water resources communities and pioneered spatially oriented water resources engineering approaches and systems. She has contributed committee leadership within EWRI, has international impact and leadership, is a strong, enthusiastic, and visible role model and mentor to students, including women students and professionals, and is a substantial developer and publisher of irrigation-oriented information tools.
She is well-published, with 95 peer-reviewed publications. Importantly, her development work in satellite-based determination of evapotranspiration has culminated in the METRIC model being inducted as one of the six benchmark evapotranspiration models in the national OpenET Spatial Evapotranspiration system housed on Google Earth Engine and supported by NASA and nonprofit organizations. OpenET is helping transform water management in the United States into systems informed by satellites. Current NASA-funded research brings daily forecast evapotranspiration from OpenET into three common irrigation scheduling systems. The companion GEARUP application developed by Kilic guides residential irrigation water conservation.
In addition to a productive research career, Kilic has been impactful in teaching and has mentored over 100 students, many of whom have gone on to employ her unique techniques in their professional careers. Kilic has provided significant contributions to the advancement of irrigation and drainage engineering.
The Royce J. Tipton Award recognizes contributions to the advancement of irrigation and drainage engineering in teaching, research, planning, design, construction, or management.
