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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has named Stephen W. Lipscomb the new director of its Idaho Water Science Center, headquartered in Boise.
Lipscomb served as the center’s acting director since the retirement of Kathy Peter in January. Prior to taking over for Peter, Lipscomb was the center’s Associate Director for Scientific Investigations.
Lipscomb joined the USGS in 1979 as a hydrologic field assistant at the California Water Science Center. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Sacramento State University, Lipscomb transferred to the Alaska Water Science Center. As a staff hydrologist there, he studied sediment transport and developed hydraulic models. In 1988, Lipscomb came to the Idaho Water Science Center, serving as the center’s Surface Water Specialist and Hydrologic Data chief before taking over the scientific investigations unit. In 2003, Lipscomb earned a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Idaho.
In addition to his research and managerial duties, Lipscomb has served the USGS on several internal committees to improve the understanding and availability of information on the Nation’s water resources.
Since 2004, Lipscomb also has been involved in the USGS’s international assistance efforts. He has worked with Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources to help that agency renovate its hydrologic monitoring network and develop staff expertise in the latest streamgaging equipment and techniques. In 2005 and 2006, Lipscomb traveled to Iraq with a team made up of USGS scientists and personnel from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Italy’s Ministry of Environment and Territory to conduct training and to construct two real-time streamgaging sites on the Lesser Zab and Tigris Rivers. Lipscomb has since traveled to Italy and Jordan to continue the development efforts. In the fall of 2007, he hosted Iraqi scientists and engineers for nine weeks of intensive classroom and field training in Idaho.
The USGS Idaho Water Science Center provides reliable, impartial scientific information about surface and ground water, water quality, and water use to citizens and to local, state, tribal, and federal cooperators. In addition to the Boise headquarters, the center has field offices in Boise, Post Falls, Twin Falls, and Idaho Falls, as well as a project office at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls.
