About Leonard's Work
Leonard was originally trained as a civil engineer, earning a bachelor's in engineering from Cooper Union and an MS from UC Berkeley. After a year working on creek and wetland restoration projects for Philip Willimas & Associates, Leonard spent three and one half years as Research Director for International Rivers Network, assisting communities in diverse countries find alternatives to destructive river development schemes. He returned to UC Berkeley to pursue a PhD in fluvial geomorphology in 1994. Leonard's dissertation research seeks to understand the feedbacks between sediment supply and erosion in rivers over long time scales and the implications for landscape evolution.