Prof. Dr. Joonghyeok Heo is an Associate Professor-Tenured at the University of Texas - Permian Basin. He has a Ph.D. from the Texas A&M University - College Station, where he conducted research in Water, Energy, and Environmental Studies. He was previously a research fellow at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. His research topics include surface and subsurface interactions, AI/machine learning, environmental sciences, energy sustainability, and hydrological issues, combining field, laboratory, and modeling work, that integrates interdisciplinary data to evaluate spatial and temporal variations in the earth sciences.