Dr. José Luis Chávez is an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. He earned his B.S. in Agricultural Engineering from the Universidade Federal da Paraiba (Paraiba Federal University) at Campina Grande, Brazil, in 1992. In 1999 Dr. Chávez received his M.S. degree in Irrigation Engineering from Utah State University. His Ph.D. was in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from Utah State University in 2005. Dr. Chávez expertise includes estimating crop consumptive water use using multispectral remote sensing imagery. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers and a member of the tri-societies "Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America." His research interests include mapping/modeling spatially distributed crop water use (ET), crop water management, irrigation scheduling, irrigation systems efficiency, precision irrigation, and urban landscape irrigation automation.

Dr. Chávez's current appointment includes research, teaching and extension responsibilities. For the research component, he is installing a Large Aperture Scintillometer (LAS) at the CSU Arkansas Valley Research Center (Rocky Ford, CO), where a couple of monolithic lysimeters have been installed to determine crop water use and crop coefficients. Once calibrated, the LAS system crop water use (or evapotranspiration (ET)) values will be used in the evaluation of remote sensing (space- and air-borne) based ET algorithms. The objective is to develop new methodologies to assess the spatially distributed crop water use to improve farmers’ irrigation management (scheduling) capabilities and thus help save precious water, soil, nutrients and energy resources.

Regarding teaching, Dr. Chávez will be teaching two courses during the Fall and Spring semesters. He will teach "Irrigation Systems Design" during the Fall and "Irrigation Systems Management" during the Spring.

Finally, Dr. Chávez is committed to extension. His extension plan includes publishing research results in peer-reviewed Journals, fact sheets and conference papers; as well as working with county extension agents in preparing/delivering seminars and workshops to transfer new water management techniques to farmers.

Before joining CSU, Dr. Chávez was with the Conservation & Production Research Laboratory, USDA, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) at Bushland, Texas. At the Bushland ARS research facility he was conducting research aimed to testing and improving upon existing remote sensing-based ET algorithms. He also was part of a large, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research project (BEAREX08) that, among other things, involved the evaluation of eddy covariance energy balance systems using large monolithic precision weighing lysimeters (four of them). In addition, Dr. Chávez developed a research project which main objective was the modeling of "Aerodynamic Temperature" (and other surface aerodynamic parameters) using remote sensing and micro-meteorological inputs.

An additional expertise acquired by Dr. Chávez was in "Precision Irrigation." He contributed to the development, installation, testing and transfer of a Remote Irrigation Monitoring and Control System (RIMCS) during his Post-Doctoral years at the Center for Precision Agricultural Systems (CPAS), Washington State University, Prosser, Washington. RIMCS is able to control variable irrigation in continuous moving irrigation systems; such as Center Pivots and Lateral Moves. RIMCS pulses (opens/closes) solenoid valves installed on individual nozzles/sprinkles (or bank of nozzles) to deliver set amounts of water by location in the field. RIMCS is a noble and robust tool for precision water/fertilizer management that can be used not only to save water but also to protect soils from erosion, and the water table from agro-chemicals contamination.

Dr. Chávez likes to spend his spare time with his family, coaching his sons in playing soccer, riding bicycles and reading good literature. He enjoys being in Fort Collins and working in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. He will strive to develop useful scientific contributions to make irrigated agriculture more sustainable for the current and future generations.