About Me

My name is Dr. Amanda Alvis, and I am a postdoctoral scholar in hydrology at the University of Washington.

I was born and raised among the corn and soybeans of central Illinois, and I stayed there until I graduated in May 2016 with a degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During my time at the University of Illinois, I interned at the United States Geological Survey Illinois Water Science Center, which is where I fell in love with hydrology.

I joined the UW Civil & Environmental Engineering department in September 2016 to pursue my Ph.D., and I spent my time in graduate school researching the erosion of unpaved forest roads, honing my technical writing and editing skills, and advocating for the well-being of graduate students in my department and beyond. I earned my Ph.D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from UW in early June 2024, where my dissertation was entitled Toward modeling traffic-induced forest road erosion: field investigations and process-based model conceptualization. (In other words, I looked at the question: “what does traffic do to unpaved forest roads?”)

I started as a postdoctoral scholar in hydrology at UW in mid-June 2024, and in mid-July 2024, I moved to Colorado Springs, CO to be closer to family. Here, I am continuing my postdoctoral work on forest road erosion remotely.

I love technical writing and editing, I have two cats named Gimli and Galadriel (yes, like LOTR), and I relish being in nature (in every capacity—including getting muddy in the field). When I’m not science-ing, you’ll likely find me reading (current book count for 2026: 2), playing games (board and video), baking, or being a giant goofball with my husband, Sebastian, and daughter, Harper, who we welcomed to our family and the world in September 2025.