Skip to main content

Zbigniew J. Kabala

Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Box 90287, Durham, NC 27708-0287
CIEMAS 2467, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


Born and raised behind the Iron Curtain, Dr. Zbigniew J. Kabala is a naturalized United States citizen who cherishes the freedoms and opportunities granted by this country. He earned his master's degree in civil engineering in 1980 from Poznan Polytechnic in Poznan, Poland, and master's degree in mathematics in 1982 from A. Mickiewicz University in Poznan. At Princeton University, he earned another master's and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering and operations research in 1985 and 1988, respectively. Next, Dr. Kabala held one-year postdoctoral appointments at the MIT in the Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory and at the UC-Berkeley in the Department of Soil Science. He was then appointed an assistant professor of hydrology in the Department of Soils and Environmental Sciences at the UC-Riverside. He joined the Duke faculty in the summer of 1994.

Dr. Kabala teaches currently the following courses: Fluid Mechanics, Advanced Fluid Mechanics, Groundwater Hydrology, and Computational Thinking and Programming with AI. He utilizes Mathematica (Wolfram Language), Python, and ChatGPT in his research and teaching. In addition, Dr. Kabala  offers online courses for Institute for Statistical and Data Science, also known as InStats for short (https://instats.org/). He enjoys his interactions with students in and outside of class. He has served as a faculty in residence (FIR) in Southgate, Giles, and West House dormitories for a number of years. Dr. Kabala has also worked with Pioneer Academics to mentor high school students from around the world and recruit some of them to Duke. He is an avid member of Toastmasters International, where he hones his public speaking skills and helps students and postdocs do the same.

Dr. Kabala follows politics with great passion and occasionally writes about it. In his free time, he enjoys racquet and water sports, hiking, reading, and listening to jazz.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering · 2001 - Present Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering

In the News


Published July 22, 2024
Incorporating Climate & Sustainability into Classes Across Duke
Published May 3, 2024
ChatGPT Enters the Programming Space

View All News

Recent Publications


Gaia: Complex systems prediction for time to adapt to climate shocks

Journal Article Vadose Zone Journal · May 1, 2025 Earth's climate has undergone significant fluctuations in the geologic past, while the sun's radiation continues to increase, yet has always returned to conditions highly favorable to life. Thus, the biosphere overall appears able to cancel effects of exte ... Full text Cite

Hydrodynamic Porosity: A New Perspective on Flow through Porous Media, Part I

Journal Article Water Switzerland · August 1, 2024 Pore-scale flow velocity is an essential parameter in determining transport through porous media, but it is often miscalculated. Researchers use a static porosity value to relate volumetric or superficial velocities to pore-scale flow velocities. We know t ... Full text Cite

Hydrodynamic Porosity: A New Perspective on Flow through Porous Media, Part II

Journal Article Water Switzerland · August 1, 2024 In this work, we build upon our previous finding that hydrodynamic porosity is an exponential function of pore-scale flow velocity (or interstitial Reynolds number). We previously discovered this relationship for media with a square cavity geometry&amp ... Full text Cite
View All Publications

Recent Grants


Proposal for Significant Undergraduate Laboratory Innovation and Improvement of Fluid Mechanics and/or Communications Laboratories

Institutional SupportPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Lord Foundation of North Carolina · 2007 - 2008

Flow Cell & Virtual Fluid Mechanics Lab

EquipmentPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Lord Foundation of North Carolina · 2000 - 2003

Multiscale Modeling and Simulation in Scientific Inference: Hierarchical Methods for Parameter Estimation in Porous Flow

ResearchAdministrative Assistant · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 1999 - 2002

View All Grants

Education, Training & Certifications


Princeton University · 1988 Ph.D.
Princeton University · 1982 M.S.
Poznan Polytechnic (Poland) · 1980 M.S.