Jim Yoon

Areas of Research: Water management, water policy evaluation modeling, water resources in vulnerable environments

JWP US: Postdoctoral Fellow with Steve Gorelick

Biographical Information

Jim Yoon is a former Ph.D. candidate in the Earth System Science department and now a postdoctoral fellow on the JWP at Stanford University.  Prior to his graduate studies at Stanford, Jim spent several years working as a water resources engineer at MWH Global (Pasadena, CA), consulting for various municipal clients across the western United States.  His primary work involved the legacy Owens Valley-Los Angeles water transfer, investigating the ecological impacts of the transfer via groundwater-ecological modeling analysis and providing scientific input to policies/agreements that guide groundwater pumping in the Valley.  Jim is also co-founder of WellDone International, a San Francisco based non-profit organization developing technologies to improve water and electricity infrastructure in remote, underserved areas across the developing world.

Research

Jim's research interests lie broadly within the realm of water resources management, water sustainability, and human-environment systems.  His current work focuses on the development of an integrated hydrologic-economic model for evaluation of water policy interventions in Jordan.  Through adoption of a multi-agent modeling approach, the model attempts to simulate diverse institutions and water users acting within a dynamic biophysical environment in a quantitative modeling framework.