Dr. Gabriele Villarini is the Theodora Shelton Pitney Professor in Environmental Studies and a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and at the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University. He also serves as the Vice Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. 

Before moving to Princeton University, he was a a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa, where he also served as Director of IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering. 

Dr. Villarini received his M.S. (2003) in civil engineering from the Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza," and his Ph.D. (2008) in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Iowa under the supervision of Prof. Witold Krajewski. He worked as a researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University with Prof. James Smith. He also received his Executive MBA (2018) and Certificate in Leadership (2018) from the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.

His research interests focus broadly on flood hydrology, extreme events, hydroclimatology, and climate predictions and projections. He has received a number of national and international awards, including the Hydrological Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist Award by the European Geosciences Union (2013), and the James B. Macelwane Medal by the American Geophysical Union (2016). He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2016). He has published over 280 peer-reviewed papers, including articles in Nature, Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Communications, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the Editor-in-Chief for Advances in Water Resources.