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Lyles College of Engineering

Jorge E. Pesantez

Assistant Professor

Civil and Geomatics Engineering | 559.278.2113 | Office: EE247

jpesantez@mail.fresnostate.edu

Education

  • Ph.D. Civil Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2021
  • M.S. Civil Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2017
  • Master in Construction Management, University of the Armed Forces (ESPE), Ecuador, 2014
  • B.S. Civil Engineering, University of Cuenca, Ecuador, 2010

Courses Taught

Undergraduate courses:
  • CE 80 Computer Applications in Civil Engineering
  • CE 128 Hydraulics
  • CE 129 Hydraulics Lab
  • CE 161 Construction Engineering I
  • CE 174 Design of Water Distribution and Wastewater Collection Systems
  • CE 176 Environmental Engineering
Graduate courses:
  • ENGR/CE 205 Numerical Methods for Engineers
  • CE 291T Modeling and Analysis of Civil Engineering Infrastructure Systems
Dr. Pesantez joined the California State University Fresno Department of Civil and Geomatics Engineering in 2022. He graduated with a B.S. in Civil Engineering at the University of Cuenca, Ecuador (2010), and obtained a Master's in Construction Management at the University of the Armed Forces (ESPE), Ecuador (2014). He holds an M.S. (2017) and a Ph.D. (2021) in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University. Before joining Fresno State, Dr. Pesantez worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. Pesantez teaches computational methods, water resources engineering, and construction engineering courses, including Computer Applications in CE, Hydraulics, Hydraulics Lab, and Construction Engineering. His scientific contributions have been recognized as the Editor's Choice of the Month by the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.
  • Water Distribution Systems (WDS) Analysis
  • Demand Management Models
  • Machine Learning for Urban Infrastructure Analysis
  • Leak Detection in WDS
  • Hydraulics of Piped Systems
  • Agent-Based Modeling (AnyLogic, Python)
Research Grants:
  • California Water Institute (CWI) Faculty Fellow (2024 and 2025) Collaborative Proposal Writing ($5.000/year) Role: PI.
  • U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation (2024-2026) "Development of an Intelligent Framework for Leak Detection and Localization in Water Distribution Systems" ($167,933 with matching fund) Role: PI. Bureau of Reclamation 2024
  • Lyles College of Engineering - Research Scholarly and Creative Activity Awards "Development of a Forecasting Water Demand Model for Sustainable Water Resources Management" ($5,000) Role: PI
  • FSTI (2024) "Deep Learning for Traffic Congestion Forecasting: Unveiling Predictive Models for Enhanced Urban Mobility Planning" ($12,000) Role: PI. FSTI 2024
  • USGS - California Institute for Water Resources (2023-2025) "Managing Peak Water Demand in Water Distribution Systems" ($85,000 with matching fund) Role: PI. CIWR 2023
  • CSU-WATER (2023-2024) Proposal to write a Full Proposal "A Leak Detection and Localization Analysis for Water Distribution Systems" ($18,000) Role: PI.
  • FSTI (2023) "Analysis and Modeling of California Central Valley Emergency Evacuation" ($12,000) Role: PI. FSTI 2023
Google Scholar

Publications (Peer-reviewed journal articles):
  1. Pesantez, J.E., Gonzalez, L., & Li, B. (2025). Exploring the Predictive Capabilities of Neural Networks and State Space Models on Hourly Water Demand Forecasting. Journal of Hydrology.
  2. Alvisi, S., …, Pasha, F., Pesantez, J.E., …, and Zou, J. (2025). The Battle of Water Demand Forecasting (BWDF). Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.
  3. Vizanko, B., Karrenberg, C., Pesantez J. E., & Berglund, E. (2025). A Genetic Algorithm Framework for Rehabilitation and Analysis of Intermittent Networks: Application for the Battle of the Intermittent Water Supply System Network. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.
  4. Pesantez, J. E., Vizanko, B., & Berglund, E. (2024). Modeling a game to shift peak water demands: WaterTime leaderboard. Journal of Cleaner Production, 143241.
  5. Pesantez, J. E., Li, B., Lee, C., Zhao, Z., Butala, M., & Stillwell, A. S. (2023). A comparison study of predictive models for electricity demand in a diverse urban environment. Energy, 129142.
  6. Pesantez, J. E., Wackerman, G. E., & Stillwell, A. S. (2023). Analysis of single-and multi-family residential electricity consumption in a large urban environment: Evidence from Chicago, IL. Sustainable Cities and Society, 104250.
  7. Pesantez, J.E., Behr, A., and Sciaudone, E. (2022) Importance of pre-storm morphological factors in determination of coastal highway vulnerability. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse10081158
  8. Fasaee, M.A.K., Pesantez, J., Pieper, K., Ling, E., Benham, B., Edwards, M., and Berglund, E. (2022) Developing Early Warning Systems to Predict Water Lead Levels in Tap Water for Private Systems. Water Research, 118787
  9. Berglund, E., Buchberger, S., Cunha, M., Faust, K., Giacomoni, M., Haxton, T., Goharian, E., Kaminsky, J., Kleiner, Y., Lee, J., Ostfeld, A., Pesantez, J., Saldarriaga, J., Shafiee, E., Spearing, L., van Zyl, K., and Yang, E. (2022). Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on water utility operations and vulnerability. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 148(6), 04022027, Editor’s Choice Collection Paper Award, June 2022
  10. Daniel, I., Pesantez, J., Letzgus, S., Fasaee, M.A.K, Alghamdi, F., Mahinthakumar, K., Berglund, E., and Cominola, A. (2022) LILA: A High-Resolution Pressure-Driven Method for Leakage Identification and Localization in Water Distribution Networks. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 148(6), 04022025
  11. Pesantez, J.E., Alghamdi, F., Sabu, S., Mahinthakumar, G., and Berglund, E. (2022) Using a Digital Twin to Explore Water Infrastructure Impacts During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Sustainable Cities and Society, 77, 103520
  12. Ramsey, E., Pesantez, J., Fasaee, M.A.K., DiCarlo, M., Monroe, J., and Berglund, E.Z. (2020) A Smart Water Grid for Micro-Trading Rainwater: Hydraulic Feasibility Analysis. Water, 2020, 12, 3075
  13. Berglund, E.Z., Pesantez, J.E., Rasekh, A., Shafiee, M.E., Sela, L., and Haxton, T. (2020) Review of Modeling Methodologies for Managing Water Distribution Security. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 146(8), 03120001, Editor’s Choice Collection Paper Award, August 2020
  14. Pesantez, J.E., Berglund, and E., and Mahinthakumar, G. (2020) Geospatial and Hydraulic Simulation to Design District Metered Areas for Large Water Distribution Networks. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 146(7), 06020010
  15. Berglund, E.Z., Monroe, J.G., Ahmed, I., Do, J., Khaksar, M., Noghabaei, M., Pesantez, J.E., Bardaka, E., Han, K., Proestos, G.T., and Levis, J. (2020) State-of-the-Art Review Smart Infrastructure: A Vision for the Role of the Civil Engineering Profession in Smart Cities. Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 26(2), 03120001
  16. Pesantez, J.E., Berglund, E.Z., and Kaza, N. (2020). Smart meters data for modeling and forecasting water demand at the user-level. Environmental Modelling & Software, 125, 104633
  17. Pesantez, J.E., Berglund, and E., Mahinthakumar, G. (2019) A Multi-Phase Procedure to Design District Metered Areas for Water Distribution Networks. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 145(8), 04019031
Publications (Peer-reviewed conference proceedings):
  1. Pesantez, J. E., DiCarlo, M., Pasha, F., & Berglund, E.Z., (2024). Predictive Model for Short-Term Water Demand Forecasting and Feature Analysis in Urban Networks. In WDSA/CCWI Joint Conference Proceedings (Vol. 3) MDPI Engineering Proceedings.
  2. Pesantez, J. E., Maldonado Alfaro, A., Ramesh, S., & Stillwell, A. S. (2024). Unlocking Water Demand Patterns and Outdoor Consumption Insights for Targeted Conservation Strategies. In World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2024 (pp. 1075-1086).
  3. Pesantez, J. E., Toledo Salazar, A., Pasha, F., & Ostfeld, A. (2024) Clustering Analysis in Water Distribution Systems for Enhanced Metering Infrastructure Retrofitting. In World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2024 (pp. 1285-1294).
  4. Pesantez, J. E., & Berglund, E. Z. (2018, July). Automatic Approach to Design District Metered Areas for Water Distribution Systems:(186). In WDSA/CCWI Joint Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1).
  5. Pesantez, J. E., Berglund, E. Z., & Kaza, N. (2018, July). Modeling and Forecasting Short-Term Water Demand Reported by Smart Meters:(187). In WDSA/CCWI Joint Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1).
Publications (Peer-reviewed reports):
  • Salazar, A. T., Medrano, M., Medina, M. D., Roa, J., & Pesantez, J. E. (2024). Enhancing Evacuation Warning Responsiveness: Exploring the Impact of Social Interactions through an Agent-Based Model Approach. DOI: 10.31979/mti.2024.2356.