Amy M Russell

Amy joined the USGS in 2015 and is a licensed professional engineer in Illinois with 18 years of experience in surface water investigations. Her current projects include watershed modeling of a small agricultural watershed and assisting with the evaluation of statistical methods to estimate streamflow at ungaged sites. 

Prior to joining the USGS, Amy was a hydrologist at the Illinois State Water Survey, where her research experience included watershed monitoring, analysis of streamflow records for water supply studies, assessments of watershed and lake hydrology, bathymetric and sedimentation surveys, development of regional regression equations, evaluation of load estimation techniques, and development of websites, databases, and custom applications to disseminate data and technical analyses to water resource managers.

As manager of the Surface Water and Floodplain Information Program, she and her staff routinely prepared reports on the condition of Illinois’ surface water resources including during several droughts and flooding events.  In addition to her public service responsibilities, she also developed proposals and obtained funding from state agencies and local municipalities.   Project management responsibilities included development of data management workflows, standard operating procedures, and quality assurance project plans, as well as hiring, managing, and supervising staff. Amy was also responsible for sample tracking and coordination with contract laboratories, monitoring all project expenditures, and budgeting salary obligations. Her technical oversight for projects included final QA review of all surface water data delivered to funding agencies.