Mentoring

Supervision

PhD · MSc · BScAll levels
UdeC · VUB· UCUENCAInstitutions
I supervise students working at the intersection of hydrology, machine learning, and remote sensing. I prioritize open science practices — all thesis code and data are shared via GitHub. I am particularly interested in co-supervising students from Latin American institutions on topics related to Andean hydrology, early warning systems, and climate adaptation.
Current · Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador Machine Learning
Luna Abril, P (2025-present). Co-supervision with Dept. of Water Resources and Environmental Sciences, Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador. Focus on developing a digital twin for a tropical mountain basin.
Current · Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador
Climate change impacts
Ecohydrological vulnerability and resilience of a páramo catchment under climate stress: a bottom-up modeling approach
Aucapiña, D. (2025-2027). MSc thesis using climate stress tests to assess hydrological vulnerability and resilience to climate change at local scales.
Current · Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Probabilistic machine learning
Uncertainty-aware hydrological forecasting using satellite precipitation and probabilistic machine learning
Tangbay, T (2024-2026). MSc thesis using machine learning probabilistic runoff forecasting
Completed · Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador Data fusion
Evaluating the three-cornered hat method for hourly satellite precipitation fusion in hydrological forecasting
Luna Abril, P. — Published in Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (2026). Satellite precipitation data fusion without requiring ground truth data.
Completed · Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador LSTM
Integrating SCS-CN and LSTM Networks for Runoff Forecasting
Merizalde, M.J. — Published in Frontiers in Water (2023). Combined geographic data with process-based knowledge to improve LSTM runoff prediction in a complex mountain basin.
Completed · Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador GOES-16
Reducing Latency in IMERG Using GOES-16 and Machine Learning
Vélez-Hernández, M. — Published in Environmental Modelling & Software (2025). U-Net CNN approach to reduce the 4-hour latency of IMERG Early Run products.
Completed · Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador Meteorological Weather Radar
Feature Engineering Applied to X-Band Radar Data for Runoff Forecasting
Álvarez-Estrella, J. — Published in Water (2024). Systematic feature engineering pipeline applied to X-band radar reflectivity for peak runoff prediction.
Completed · Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador
Multiple undergraduate theses in water resources and hydroinformatics
Topics include flood frequency analysis, GIS-based hydrological modelling, and open-data pipelines for streamflow monitoring in Chilean river basins.
Interested in joining? Get in touch.
I welcome applications from motivated students interested in any of these topics: machine learning for hydrology, satellite precipitation, flood and drought early warning, climate extremes, and open science in water resources. Positions at UdeC (Chile) and through co-supervision agreements with VUB (Belgium) and UCUENCA (Ecuador). → Contact me