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Ann McGowan is a hydrologic technician at the USGS Oregon Water Science Center.
Ann first got her feet wet starting out as a student intern at the Colorado Water Science Center in Durango from 2009-2011. There she gained knowledge performing routine streamflow and water quality field measurements, maintenance on cableway infrastructures, other construction, and processing and preparing alkalinity samples for lab analysis.
In 2015, after a short break, she returned to the USGS as a Pathways Intern with the Oregon Water Science Center (ORWSC) in Portland. In 2016, she was hired on full-time for stream gaging in the Bull Run Watershed and around the Willamette Basin.
Since 2019, she shifted focus to maintaining continuous water quality monitors, calibrating, and analyzing data in the Tualatin Basin and Lower Willamette Basin. This includes what has been dubbed a "Super Monitor" site on the Willamette River measuring various parameters such as water temperature, turbidity, specific conductance, pH, dissolved oxygen, total algae, fluorescent dissolved organic matter, and nitrate.
Ann participated in various collaborative projects collecting stream flow measurements in the Tualatin Basin beaver study, synoptic collection of temperature for groundwater modeling with a digital temperature sensor, stormwater sediment collection, and water-quality monitoring of reservoir drawdowns below Middle Fork Willamette and South Santiam River dams.
She currently serves as a member of the National Continuous Water Quality Committee since 2023 and has recently joined the DECAP team helping process real-time data files for ORWSC. In addition, she acts as the Center’s laboratory Quality Management System Manger to ensure lab supplies, protocols, and practices are in place for safety and general usage for lab users.
Science and data collection projects Ann contributes to:
Hydrologic technician, Ann McGowan, shows OMSI representative a water quality sensor deployed in the Willamette River near OMSI. This sensor monitors water temperature, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, blue green algea, specific conductance and pH. The sensors need cleaned every 4-6 weeks.
Hydrologic technician, Ann McGowan, shows OMSI representative a water quality sensor deployed in the Willamette River near OMSI. This sensor monitors water temperature, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, blue green algea, specific conductance and pH. The sensors need cleaned every 4-6 weeks.
Hydrologic technician Sylas Daughtrey works at a gagehouse on Columbia River at Stevenson, Washington
Hydrologic technician Sylas Daughtrey works at a gagehouse on Columbia River at Stevenson, Washington
Oregon Water Science Center hydrologic technician, Ann McGowan makes a flow measurement at the hot spring pools along the San Juan River at Pagosa Springs, CO (09342500). This photo was featured in the USGS 2011 stream gaging calendar.
Oregon Water Science Center hydrologic technician, Ann McGowan makes a flow measurement at the hot spring pools along the San Juan River at Pagosa Springs, CO (09342500). This photo was featured in the USGS 2011 stream gaging calendar.
Science and data collection projects Ann contributes to:
Hydrologic technician, Ann McGowan, shows OMSI representative a water quality sensor deployed in the Willamette River near OMSI. This sensor monitors water temperature, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, blue green algea, specific conductance and pH. The sensors need cleaned every 4-6 weeks.
Hydrologic technician, Ann McGowan, shows OMSI representative a water quality sensor deployed in the Willamette River near OMSI. This sensor monitors water temperature, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, blue green algea, specific conductance and pH. The sensors need cleaned every 4-6 weeks.
Hydrologic technician Sylas Daughtrey works at a gagehouse on Columbia River at Stevenson, Washington
Hydrologic technician Sylas Daughtrey works at a gagehouse on Columbia River at Stevenson, Washington
Oregon Water Science Center hydrologic technician, Ann McGowan makes a flow measurement at the hot spring pools along the San Juan River at Pagosa Springs, CO (09342500). This photo was featured in the USGS 2011 stream gaging calendar.
Oregon Water Science Center hydrologic technician, Ann McGowan makes a flow measurement at the hot spring pools along the San Juan River at Pagosa Springs, CO (09342500). This photo was featured in the USGS 2011 stream gaging calendar.