Paul Micheletty is an expert Hydrologist with experience in decision support system development, long-term water supply forecasting using ensemble methods, and system optimization utilizing multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. In his role at RTI as a senior technical engineer, he works to develop a suite of tools and models focused on improving risk-informed decision making for reservoir managers using Probabilistic Flood Hazard Analyses. These tools have been implemented across the entire system of reservoirs for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), as well as other hydropower organizations.
Mr. Micheletty also has experience as a technical lead on a NASA funded project with the National Weather Service (NWS) Colorado Basin River Forecast Center to couple novel snow data assimilation techniques with distributed hydrologic modeling, providing enhanced water supply forecasts for the Colorado River Basin. He has also supported several projects to couple simulation and optimization models. These systems have been used for reservoir optimization for the USACE, model optimization at Denver Water, and model calibration for the NWS.
Prior to joining RTI, Mr. Michelettey’s work had an emphasis on the use of satellite remotely sensed data in water resource applications. As a research fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), his work focused on improving the default parameterization of the National Hydrologic Model–Precipitation Runoff Modeling System (NHM-PRMS) using remotely sensed vegetation data. Mr. Michelettey’s research in graduate school included investigating the watershed response of changes in snow cover extent after wildfires.