University of Kansas professor Amy Hansen received a 2026-2027 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to conduct field research in Chile on how different water sources mix in ecosystems.
The Fulbright Program is a prestigious cultural exchange opportunity for researchers and professionals to travel and collaborate abroad. Scholars then bring what they’ve learned back to the United States and their campuses.
Hansen is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at KU, where she studies surface waters, “working to understand how factors such as vegetation and watershed structure influence water quality, primarily in streams, wetlands and rivers,” according to a KU news release.
As a Fulbright Scholar, she will collaborate with researchers in Chile examining differences in water sources, like variations in density when saltwater enters estuaries; the interaction of urban runoff with rivers; and glacial meltwater combined with nonglaciated runoff.
Per the release, Chile is an optimal locale for Hasen’s research.
“Chile is this really long, skinny country that covers many different climates and ecosystems,” Hansen said. “So, because it has all that variability, there are a lot of opportunities to find this phenomenon that I’m looking for where we have this shear mixing happening due to density gradients.”
KU’s Latin America Fund is also supporting Hansen to study mixing in glacial meltwater systems in Patagonia.
Hansen’s work in Chile will go for three months starting in spring 2027.
If local news matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat — get the latest news from the Times delivered to your inbox:
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
This post is by the Lawrence Times news team.
If you have news tips, questions, comments, concerns, compliments or corrections for our team, please reach out and let us know what’s on your mind. Email us at [email protected] (don’t forget the KS!), or find more contact info and a quick contact form at LawrenceKSTimes.com/contact.
Follow us so you won’t miss the local news that matters most to you:
Latest Lawrence news:
Jacob Rice / Lawrence Times
