Clint Willson

CLINT WILLSON

Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Director of the LSU Center for River Studies

Clint Willson is the Mike N. Dooley, PE Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Director of the LSU Center for River Studies. He earned his BS in Aerospace Engineering from Penn State in 1985 and then served as an officer in the US Marine Corps for 6 ½ years. Following his service, Clint attended the University of Texas at Austin where he earned his MS in Environmental Engineering and PhD in Civil Engineering. He then spent two years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Environmental Science & Engineering. Clint has been at LSU for over 22 years teaching, conducting research and mentoring students in the areas of water resources and environmental engineering.

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the second-longest river on the North American continent. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for 2,320 miles to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi’s watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi, of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the fifteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.