Jasper Vrugt

The 2010 Outstanding Young Scientist Award is awarded to Jasper Vrugt for his outstanding contributions on model development, calibration, diagnostics and their improvement.

The ability to make hydrological predictions in the context of global change is one of the biggest challenges the science of hydrology is facing today and Jasper Vrugt’s research on model development, diagnostics and improvement is instrumental towards addressing these challenges.

Jasper’s research focuses on the development of general-purpose algorithms and numerical approaches that aim to better extract information from the mismatch between model predictions and observations to quantify individual error sources and improve theory, understanding and predictability of environmental systems. Jasper has made significant contributions to four distinct disciplines: soil physics, parameter estimation (model calibration), uncertainty estimation (Bayesian statistics), and hydrology. Currently, he is actively researching model diagnostics and evaluation problems in geophysics, atmospheric chemistry, and eco-hydrology and he and his collaborators have started to publish papers on bird migration, electrical resistivity tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. His accomplishments in any one of these disciplines would rank him among the most insightful and impactful scientists of his generation. What’s more, based on the nature of his research, his generous personality, and his unparalleled ability to see important and tractable questions in a wide range of disciplines, there is no question that he will continue to excel throughout his career. Jasper has published about 60 papers (5 of which are currently in Press) in international peer reviewed journals; and 5 invited book chapters; 2 of his papers have appeared in PNAS, 1 of which has been highlighted by the journal Science. Jasper’s papers have received a total of about 1050 citations, with a corresponding ISI h-index of 16. In 2007, his work was recognized with the awarding of the Early Career Award in Soil Physics of Division S-1 of the Soil Science Society of America, and the Dutch Hydrology Prize 2004 – 2006.