M. Sivapalan

He was visiting professor at Vienna Technical University, Delft Technical University, University of Technology, Sydney and Tsinghua University. In 2007 Sivapalan was the Borland Lecturer at the AGU Hydrology Days at Colorado State University.

Sivapalan was educated at Hartley College. After school he joined the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, graduating from its successor, the University of Sri Lanka Peradeniya campus in 1975 with a B.Sc. degree in civil engineering. He later received a M.Eng. in water resources engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology in 1977, and a M.A. (1983) and Ph.D. (1986) in civil engineering, with a major in hydrology from Princeton University.

Sivapalan worked briefly at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Sri Lanka Peradeniya campus as an instructor in civil engineering in 1975. He was graduate student/research associate at the Division of Water Resources Engineering, Asian Institute of Technology between 1975 and 1977. He then worked as a consulting civil engineer for Rocks & Stones in Ibadan, Nigeria between 1978 and 1981. He was a research associate at Princeton University's Department of Civil Engineering and Operations Research between 1986 and 1988. He then worked at the University of Western Australia's Centre for Water Research for 17 years, initially as a lecturer (1988) before being promoted to senior lecturer (1992), associate professor (1995) and professor (1999). He joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 2005, teaching undergraduate and post-graduate courses in watershed hydrology, engineering hydrology, stochastic hydrology and water resources engineering. He became Chester and Helen Siess Endowed Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois in April 2015.

Professor Murugesu Sivapalan, born 19 April 1953 as a Sri Lankan Tamil, is a hydrologist internationally recognized in the field of catchment hydrology. He is known for his research on hydrological predictions in changing environments, leadership of initiatives in ungauged basins and pioneering in socio-hydrology. He is currently Chester and Helen Siess Endowed Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois.

Sivapalan was born on 19 April 1953. He was the son of Sangarapillai Murugesu and Umadevy from Karaveddy in northern Ceylon. He is married to Banumathy. They have two sons (Mayuran and Kavin).