Susan Riha, Cornell's Charles L. Pack Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has been appointed director of the New York State Water Resources Institute (WRI), effective Sept. 30. She succeeds Keith Porter, a senior extension associate in earth and atmospheric sciences and adjunct professor of water law at Cornell, who has directed the WRI since 1986.

The WRI has fostered and supported multidisciplinary research and outreach involving the watersheds for New York City and the Susquehanna and Hudson rivers, among others. Through the work of the WRI, Cornell faculty members have accumulated a substantial body of knowledge that applies to all major aspects of watershed management.

Riha served the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences as director of sponsored research from 2004 to 2006. From 1999 to 2004, she co-chaired the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Her areas of expertise include plant-environment modeling, environmental biophysics, climate change, drought stress, forest soils and land-use change.

The 55-member national network of Water Resources Research Institutes was established by federal law in 1964. In 1986 the New York State Legislature established the WRI under state law as the New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell, where it serves as a universitywide institute to address problems of water resources through research, education and outreach.