Dr. Xiaofeng Liu

Ph.D., P.E., F. EWRI

Associate Professor

Department of Civil and Environment Engineering

Institute of Computational and Data Sciences

Penn State University


N387 ECoRE

University Park, PA 16802

Phone: (814) 863-2940 (office)

Email: xzl123@psu.edu

LinkedIn: Xiaofeng Liu

X: @Xiaofeng_Liu19

Google Scholar: Profile

News

  • 2/22/2025: We introduced Universal Shallow Water Equations (USWEs) and a solver in Hydrograd.jl, a Julia package for computational hydrodynamics with automatic differentiation and scientific machine learning. A manuscript is under review (arXiv).
  • 2/22/2025: Our group published a new paper on the scour and erosion around porous structures (link).
  • 3/25/2024: Xiaofeng becomes an ASCE EWRI fellow.
  • 3/25/2024: Our group publishes the NCHRP Research Report 1077: Selection and Application of Manning's Roughness Values in Two-Dimensional Hydraulic Models (report, data)

For more news, see the archive.

Quick Overview of Our Research

  • Example numerical models and tools:
    • Hydrograd.jl: Computational Hydrodynamics with Automatic Differentiation for Scientific Machine Learning. A Julia package for universal shallow water equations.
    • OpenFOAM: Our major research package with multiple applications
    • pyHMT2D: Python package for 2D Hydraulic Modeling Tools
    • dl4HM: Deep-learning for Hydraulics Modeling, a python package for building data-driven machine learning models.
  • Example experimental work:
    • Scour around porous hydraulic structures
    • Rock weir hydraulics
    • Sediment movement through synthetic turf

Education

  • PH.D. (2008) Civil Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
  • M.S. (2007) Applied Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
  • M.S. (2003) Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing, China
  • B.E. (2000) Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Professional Experiences

  • 2019 –  Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Penn State University
  • 2014 –  2019 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Penn State University
  • 2010 – 2013  Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at San Antonio
  • 2009 – 2010  Visiting Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • 2008 – 2009  Postdoctoral Research Associate, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Awards and Honors

  • Harry West Teaching Award, Penn State CEE, 2020
  • State of the Art of Civil Engineering Award, ASCE, 2020
  • Third Place, Phase I of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Divide and Conquer Challenge for River Modeling, 2022
  • Second Place, Phase II of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Divide and Conquer Challenge for River Modeling, 2023