ASCE has honored Jennifer G. Duan, Ph.D., P.E., F.EWRI, A.M.ASCE, with the 2025 Margaret S. Petersen Award for her contributions to sediment transport engineering research and practice while creating inclusive environments for women engineers and students to prosper and for making significant contributions to ASCE through technical, task, and society committee efforts and leadership.
Duan has made extraordinary contributions in research, teaching, and mentorship, following in the footsteps of Margaret Petersen, another University of Arizona hydraulic engineering professor. She is a foremost expert in sediment transport and hydraulic modeling. Those efforts are often tied to practical problems and engineering solutions, including bridge scour and rapid two-dimensional flow modeling. She has brought her research to application in significant projects to control erosion and sedimentation at bridges and in reservoirs in Arizona, along the Mississippi River, and in Saudi Arabia, to highlight a few.
Since joining ASCE in 1998, she has provided significant service to EWRI and ASCE. She has led multiple technical task committees in the areas of sedimentation and erosion and led the Institute’s Award Committee. Because of her research and efforts in ASCE, Duan was elected as a diplomat in the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers and a fellow of EWRI.
In addition to the direct mentoring of graduate students (40% of her advisees are women), she established Women in Civil Engineering (WICE), an organization to promote belonging of women in civil engineering at her university, and she has served as its advisor since 2009. In addition, specifically to her field of sediment transport, Duan founded the Mentoring Institute for Sediment Transport (MIST), through which she placed 25 mentees with established leaders in science and engineering across the country.
The Margaret S. Petersen Award recognizes a female member of ASCE or EWRI who has demonstrated exemplary service to the water resources and environmental science and engineering community.
