Jaewan Yoon, David Weyant and Stephen Greiling were awarded best papers during the 2021 VLWA (Virginia Lake and Watershed Association) conference.

Yoon, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, worked with graduate student David Weyant on the first paper, "Radiological Water Quality Modeling for a Worst-Case Catastrophic Failure from Proposed Uranium Mine Site, Coles Hill, Virginia." The paper won the Dave Pearson Watershed Excellence Award (Best Paper Award).

The annual award is presented at the conference to the best submitted abstract.

The research focused on water quality modeling research on radioactive substance transport and contingency assessment in the contributing tributary systems to the Lake Gaston watershed.

The second paper, written with graduate student, Stephen Greiling, also received the Dave Pearson Watershed Excellence Award.

This research, "Estuarine Water Quality Response Modeling for Tidal Flooding Susceptibility," focused on estuarine water quality response modeling on sea-level rise and resilience.

Yoon's research areas include water quality transport and fate, characterization and modeling.