Salvatore Straface was born in 1967. He is married with two children and, from 2020, is Full Professor of Subsurface Hydraulics at the department of Environment of University of Calabria.
Just after receiving his graduation in Civil Engineering (Hydraulics) from the University of Calabria, in 1993, he held Philosophy Doctorate in the 1997 with the dissertation “A numerical model for the groundwater flow and transport based on the cell method” at the University of Calabria. From second half of 90s he was Lecturer for several classes such as: Subsurface Hydraulics, Water Resource Management, Groundwater Hydrology, Hydrology, Hydrology of the Engineering and Environmental Hydraulics, in which he acted as chairman in the relative boards of examiners. Moreover he were co-relator of many graduation thesis relative to the Engineering Faculty of the University of Calabria. From January 2003 is a member of the PhD Counsil for “Hydraulic Engineering for Environment and Territory”, a joint PhD school between the Polytechnic of Bari, the University of Basilicata and the University of Calabria. He is reviewer for several international journals. He was Principal Investigator of the following research-projects: “Studio modellistico degli effetti dello smaltimento nel sottosuolo di reflui depurati mediante l'utilizzo del codice di calcolo SUTRA”, financed by CNR-IRSA; “Sviluppo di una metodologia per il riconoscimento di siti contaminati basata sulle Reti Neurali a partire da dati telerilevati”, financed by ASI (Italian Spatial Agency) year 1999; “Pilot Project for rivers and aquifers monitoring into the province of Cosenza” financed by the Province of Cosenza – Environment Section (year 2003). He was Co-Principal Investigator of the following research-projects: “Rapporto dati-modelli: tecniche non convenzionali per la misura di parametri idrodinamici ed idrodispersivi e procedure di validazione”, financed by the Italian Ministry of Research and Education (Years 1994-96); “Definizione di criteri di affidabilità dei modelli e dei dati sperimentali nella bonifica dei corpi idrici sotterranei” financed by the Italian Ministry of Research and Education (Years 1996-98); “Broom-fibre PRB realization and evaluation for brownfield remediations” financed by Italian Ministry of Research and Education (2004); “Validation of mathematical models of simulation and prediction of natural phenomena” financed by RINA (Registro Italiano Navale); "Characterization of heterogeneous aquifers by means hydraulic and geophysical measurements: hydraulic tomography and self-potential”, financed by the Italian Ministry of Research and Education (years 2006 - 08).
He was visiting scientist at international research institutions such as the University of Arizona (2001) and the Boise State University, where, in the 2007 organized a two-week summer field school entitled “Hydrogeophysics: Theory, Methods, and Modeling”. Joint research activity with such institutions is currently active, as demonstrated by joint publications appearing in international journals. His research activity (about 45 publications, of which 15 on international journals included in the Journal Citation Report) has been focused mainly on hydrodynamic and hydro-dispersive parameter estimation, numerical solution of flow and transport in saturated and unsaturated soils with a discrete approach (method of Cells and Cellular Automata), geostatistics, hydrogeophysics, remediation of contaminate sites and validation of prediction models.
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