John S. Gulliver

John S. Gulliver is an American environmental engineer and academic. He is an emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota.

Gulliver's research interests include hydraulic structures, environmental engineering, chemical transport, and environmental fluid mechanics. He has received the Rickey Medal and the Hunter T. Rouse Award and Lecture from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and has been an ASCE Fellow since 1993.

Education Gulliver received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1974 and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1977. He completed his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1980.

Career Gulliver's academic career included being appointed an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota from 1981 to 1987. He was promoted to associate professor there in 1987 and remained in the post until 1996. Between 1996 and 2021, he was appointed professor at the University of Minnesota. Since 2021, he has held the title of emeritus professor there. At the University of Minnesota, he was also appointed head of the Department of Civil Engineering from 1998 to 2007 and director of the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory from 2003 to 2004. In related work, he proposed that PFOS and PFOA can be eliminated from drinking water sources by using ferric chloride and alum as a coagulant. In his research on stormwater management, he showed that urban runoff can lead to a range of different environmental problems, such as the endangerment of stream habitat, stream channelization, and decline in water quality. It was also suggested that green infrastructure practices are effective when implemented with defined targets and parameters, as well as by consistent evaluation. Moreover, his work also emphasized that green infrastructure can retain stormwater, minimize runoff, and provide ecological advantages.

Gulliver is one of the patent holders on the SAFL Baffle, a device that retains sediment in a stormwater sump for later cleaning. He also co-developed an iron-enhanced sand filter (IESF) and demonstrated that an average of 88% phosphate could be retained for approximately 200m treated depth after using IESFs as a stormwater treatment method. Along with colleagues, he developed the MPD Infiltrometer, a device for measuring surface infiltration rates, whose accuracy in measuring saturated hydraulic conductivity (K) and Green-Ampt wetting-front suction head was verified by numerical analysis and laboratory experiments involving falling head barrels filled with various types of sand.

Awards and honors 1993 – Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineers 2020 – Hunter T. Rouse Award and Lecture, American Society of Civil Engineers