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<\/a>Cardenas lectures to Basey National High School students on their covered basketball court in Basey, Philippines. Photo: Bayani Cardenas<\/p>\nAs Jackson School of Geosciences Professor Bayani Cardenas began to plan the stops for his year-long world tour, he knew one thing \u2014 he was not going to do this half-heartedly. Now, after spending all of last year traveling to university campuses, high schools, laboratories and government offices to share insights from his hydrogeology research, Cardenas can look back on more than 100 talks in over 70 cities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mission accomplished.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cardenas has been a hydrogeology professor at the Jackson School for almost 20 years. His lecturing usually takes place on The University of Texas at Austin campus in the JGB building, or in field sites during the school\u2019s summer hydrogeology field camp. But last year, Cardenas taught to the wider world as the Geological Society of America\u2019s 2025 Birdsall-Dreiss and LaMoreaux International Distinguished Lecturer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This prestigious award recognizes excellence in hydrogeology research; its recipients are selected by past winners based solely on their research reputation and communication skills. Awardees aren\u2019t simply given a prize. They go on tour \u2014 visiting universities and institutions around North America and internationally \u2014 to speak about the science of water and how it interacts with the environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBayani is world-class hydrogeologist and geoscience communicator, and I\u2019m so pleased that thousands of students and researchers all over the world got to experience his magic firsthand,\u201d said Danny Stockli, interim dean of the Jackson School. \u201cBeing the Birdsall-Dreiss lecturer is a tremendous honor, but also a testament to our school\u2019s excellence and global reach. Thus, supporting his teaching leave and travel was a no-brainer and highly impactful investment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most professors who are selected for this reputable lecture tour give 40-50 talks<\/a> over the course of the year \u2014 and usually they have two to three<\/a> lecture topics that the host institution can choose from. Cardenas, meanwhile, gave 102 talks in 2025, and had nine lecture topics, ranging from the renewability of groundwater to land-ocean connectivity in Arctic lagoons.<\/p>\n Cardenas\u2019 Lecture Topics<\/p>\n Hydrobiogeochemistry of terrestrial-aquatic interfaces from pore to continental scales \u201cI get bored easily \u2014 I just work on a bunch of things,\u201d Cardenas said. \u201cAnd if I ended up choosing one, two, or three talks, I would feel like I was picking favorite grad students. Because I\u2019ve had generations of students working on different topics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When Cardenas was chosen, he began to reach out to his friends and colleagues in the hydrology world to see if their institutions would be interested in hosting him. Before he knew it, he had dozens of lectures on the books. He then made a concerted effort to reach out to institutions with fewer resources, and quickly hit 90.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Jan. 10, 2025 he made his first tour stop \u2014 to a high school in a rural part of his native Philippines. His last stop was on Dec. 12 at the University of Iowa.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Among the new experiences, Cardenas got to reconnect with familiar faces and places. He was hosted by many of his former doctoral students, and even got to meet some of their doctoral students \u2014 his academic grandchildren, as he calls them. He also visited all three of the universities where he was educated and trained: The University of the Philippines Diliman, the University of Nebraska\u2013Lincoln, and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nHow a river\u2019s periodic pulse affects its liver: hyporheic zones in the Anthropocene
\nTidal and seasonal groundwater-surface water mixing zones: hot or cold spots for arsenic contamination?
\nGroundwater on ice: hydrogeology and the fate of permafrost carbon in Arctic watersheds
\nLand-ocean connectivity in Arctic lagoons due to groundwater
\nRidge to reef volcanic hydrogeology: submarine groundwater in the world\u2019s most biodiverse coasts
\nDevastation of a sole source coastal aquifer from the most powerful storm ever
\nInsights on groundwater renewability from age and residence time analysis
\nBeyond Darcy and Fick \u2013 Micro-scale insights on nonlinear continuum flow and transport<\/p>\n