Dr. Bridget Scanlon is senior research scientist, Bureau of Economic Geology, in the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to UT in 1987, she worked as a hydrogeologist, where she researched the hydraulic characterization of a Superfund site. Since then, hydrology has carried through as a research interest, and she was selected as the 2007 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer, sponsored by the GSA Hydrogeology Division.

Scanlon leads the Sustainable Water Resources Program. The program includes research scientists, postdoctoral fellows and graduate research assistants working on different topics. Its primary objective is to assess sustainability issues with respect to water resources within the context of climate variability and land use/land cover change. Water resources include water quantity and water quality. Studies include physical, chemical, and isotopic analyses and numerical modeling. Much of the research focuses on groundwater recharge in desert basins and the impacts of climate variability and change and land use/land cover change on recharge. Impacts of natural and anthropogenic sources of contamination on water quality are also addressed.