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:
- 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):
- Pesantez, J. E., Vizanko, B., & Berglund, E. (2024). Modeling a game to shift peak water demands: WaterTime
leaderboard. Journal of Cleaner Production, 143241.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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):
- 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.
- 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).
- 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).
- 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).
- 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.