Irenee Graduates
Congratulations!
Congratulations to Irenee Felix on his Doctoral Defense
Posted by Jim Stagge on August 07, 2026
I'm excited to celebrate the success of PhD student Irenee Felix Munyejuru, who successfully defended his dissertation on July 15, 2026, and received his doctoral diploma on August 9, 2026.
Irenee's dissertation, titled "A Basin-Scale Hydrological Framework for Reconstructing Volcanically Forced Nile Flood Variability," presents a model for simulating major climate disruptions to the pre-modern, near-natural Nile River. The later chapters of his dissertation apply this model to two important periods: (1) the last 1,000 years (850-2000 CE) and (2) the Ptolemaic era (305–30 BCE), showing how volcanic eruptions impacted streamflow throughout the watershed. These simulations show the rapid decrease in the annual flood, critical to Egyptian flood-recession agriculture, and a multi-year depression of baseflow.
For more detail on the model, refer to "Multi-Objective Calibration of a Pre-Modern Nile Hydrologic Model Using Recovered Records," published in Hydrology. Keep watching for new publications arising from Irenee's impressive research.
While a member of the lab, Irenee was also an important co-author on "Expected annual minima from an idealized moving-average drought index," published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences.
Congratulations to Irene on his graduation, his hard work, thoughtful research, and contributions to hydrology. I'm excited to see what he accomplishes next!
