SAFL Faculty Win Three 2025 McKnight Awards

Three faculty affiliates at the Saint Anthony Falls Lab have been honored with 2025 McKnight Awards, recognizing their outstanding contributions to research and academic excellence. These awards are made possible through generous donations from the McKnight Foundation. 

Dr. Lian Shen, SAFL’s  Director, received the Distinguished McKnight University Professorship, which honors and rewards the most distinguished and highest-achieving mid-career faculty. The title is held for the remainder of the recipient’s career at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Shen, Kenneth T. Whitby Professor in Mechanical Engineering, studies turbulent air and water flows, water waves, and their interactions. His  research has broad applications in environmental, geophysical, and climate studies and is essential for many engineering problems in the atmosphere, ocean, and lake environments. Professor Shen’s group has developed state-of-the-art computer simulation tools for fluid motions, made major breakthroughs in developing innovative theories for wave-turbulence interaction mechanisms, and significantly contributed to the marine environment and offshore wind energy applications.

SAFL Affiliates Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Boya Xiong both received a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship this year, which is designed to advance the careers of assistant professors at a crucial point in their professional lives. 

Dr. Fairfax is a Professor in Geography and studies beavers. She uses satellite remote sensing, geospatial modeling, and field studies to quantitatively understand how beaver ecosystem engineering behaviors (e.g., dam building, tree chewing, canal digging) create disturbance-resistant wetlands, as well as how our various beaver management practices alter their distribution and function. Wetland environments provide numerous ecosystem services, as well as critical habitat, along lakes and rivers throughout North America. They’re also increasingly threatened by climate-change-intensified disturbances, including flood, drought, and wildfire.

Dr. Boya Xiong is an assistant professor in Civil, Environmental & Geo- Engineering. Focusing on the interface of material science and environmental engineering, the Xiong group elucidates the environmental fate, degradation, and impacts of polymers/plastics for sustainable design and waste management, and develops novel sustainable membrane and filtration materials and technologies to combat fouling and the most prevalent pollutants of our time (pathogens, microplastics, chemicals) for more effective water and air treatment.

The Saint Anthony Falls Lab is proud that these award winners represent many of the core research priorities at our center: clean water, ecological health, climate change mitigation, and low carbon energy research and production. Congrats to these brilliant professors!