Vidya Samadi grew up in the Caspian Sea Region between Europe and Asia. Her parents instilled in her and her siblings the belief that education is key to achieving personal and professional success.
That belief and the skills she gained in learning to play chess have helped her succeed.
“During my upbringing, my parents strongly emphasized the value of getting a good education, encouraging me and my siblings to excel in school and pursue higher learning as a means to achieve personal and professional success,” Samadi said. “From the time we were very young, my father encouraged us to participate in athletics that require logical thinking and decision making, such as playing chess.
“I believe chess principles helped sharpen my logical reasoning and strategic thinking — the skills I needed to be a successful engineer.”
Today, Samadi is a water resources engineer who applies lessons from her parents to help train Clemson University students to become successful water resource engineers.
A family of engineers
Being an engineer runs in her family.
“Growing up, I idolized many of my family members who were engineers,” Samadi said. “I wanted to be like them. Unlike my siblings who got their college degrees in computer science and mathematics, I decided to study engineering. At a very young age, I was initially drawn towards software engineering specifically because my uncle was a computer programmer, and I was fascinated with his work.”
The city – Gorgan, Iran – where Samadi grew up is on the border of Turkmenistan, formerly the Soviet Union.
While working on her bachelor’s degree in engineering at Gorgan University, she took general engineering courses along with advanced math and physics courses. Following this curriculum enriched her experiences.
“I formed deep friendships with my professors, including my mechanics of solid and fluid mechanics professor, who became a mentor by sharing insights beyond the classroom about career choices,” Samadi said. “I took his courses during my sophomore year. He beautifully explained the dynamics of fluids which are the foundation of understanding of water movement in streams and in the subsurface· This was the moment when my interest in water resources engineering was sparked. After earning my undergraduate degree, I decided to pursue my graduate degree in water resources engineering.”
Graduate School
After passing Iran’s national university entrance exam, Konkur, Samadi was accepted into the University of Tehran graduate program to study water resources engineering. She then moved to the United Kingdom and joined the Hydro-environmental Research Center in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cardiff University, where she conducted research under the guidance of Professor Catherine Wilson in water and environmental informatics.
Today, she uses her knowledge and experiences “…to nurture the next generation of innovative engineers by providing a rigorous academic foundation, fostering intellectual thinking, and conducting impactful research that addresses real-world water resources challenges, ultimately contributing to the advancement of the engineering field and its positive impact on society.”
She encourages other females to become engineers like her.
“I am passionate about getting more girls to pursue engineering careers because of the millions of jobs that will require engineering skills over the next few years and because success in the digital age depends on fully utilizing the talents of both genders,” Samadi said.
Coming to Clemson
Samadi joined the Clemson University Agricultural Sciences Department in January 2020. She chose Clemson “because of its strong reputation in engineering-related research and its land-grant commitment to serving the community.” These align “perfectly” with her career interests.
“The vibrant community of faculty members conducting cutting-edge work in this area, along with the opportunities for collaboration and mentorship, made this institution stand out as the ideal place to further my academic career,” she said. “While at Clemson, I hope to inspire the next generation of water resources engineers – particularly women engineers – to democratize access to water resources tools and create a supportive and collaborative learning environment where everyone can thrive.
Collaboration is important
“Collaboration in the workplace is not about working together; it is about creating a synergy where the collective impact of the team is far greater than each individual contribution,” Samadi said.
One example of her collaboration includes working with Clemson researchers and South Carolina Emergency Management personnel to develop a Flood Evacuation Tool to help forecast floods, identify at-risk roads and verify safe evacuation routes. This free tool partners artificial intelligence (AI) with human knowledge. The researchers use this human-AI teaming (HAT) partnership to create an intelligent model for addressing flood evacuation decisions in isolated South Carolina rural coastal communities.
Another example of her collaboration is a grant she and Matthew Boyer, Clemson research associate professor in the Department of Engineering and Science Education, received from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure to train cyberinfrastructure (CI) users and contributors in the water science and engineering.
WaterSoftHack, a free, two-week virtual program for researchers and students, was part of this training. This training launched in 2024 with more than 160 participants, including 15 program fellows. It will continue through 2026.
In addition to Samadi and Boyer, other collaborators are Clemson graduate student Krishna Panthi, University of Iowa professors Ibrahim Demir and Bijaya Adhikari, University of Iowa graduate student Carlos Ramirez, and Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science Inc. (CUAHSI) senior research hydrologist Anthony Castronova.
For her research, Samadi was honored with the 2024 Mid-Career Award for Applied Research from the Universities Council on Water Resources for her research focusing on leveraging advances in hydroinformatics and cyber-physical systems to address challenges associated with water resources modeling.
Charles Privette, Clemson agricultural sciences department chair, praised Samadi for her research contributions.
“Since joining the agricultural sciences department in 2020, Dr. Samadi has been a very productive researcher,” Privette said. “Not only has she received numerous NSF grants, she also has mentored many graduate students and has excelled at getting the results of her research published in peer-reviewed research journals. In culmination with her time in Ag Sciences, she has been awarded several outstanding performance awards for her research contributions.”
In addition to being a Clemson researcher, Samadi has served as a research assistant professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Carolina and a postdoctoral scholar with the NOAA Center for the Carolina Integrated Sciences and Assessments (CISA-USC).
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