Postdoctoral Mentors

When seeking a postdoc appointment at JISAO, you are strongly encouraged to provide a letter of support from a mentor who may be a JISAO, PMEL, NMML, AFSC and NWFSC research scientist and/or a UW faculty member in relevant departments. JISAO seeks Post-doctoral Research Associates with research interests in atmospheric science, oceanography, climate science, and fisheries science and management. JISAO encompasses a broad range of scientific interests including large-scale atmospheric-ocean interaction, ocean and atmospheric dynamics, biogeochemical cycles, ocean acidification, marine ecosystems, climate impacts on ocean and land ecosystems, high-latitude climate, paleoclimate studies, ocean and atmospheric model development and evaluation, and climate forcing and feedbacks, including both aerosol and clouds. JISAO operates jointly between the University of Washington and the NOAA research laboratories in Seattle, particularly the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL).

A list of possible mentors and their research interests can be found below. This list is not inclusive; mentors at PMEL or the UW not on this list may also be considered.

Tom Ackerman, Atmospheric Sciences

Becky Alexander, Atmospheric Sciences

Our research examines how tropospheric aerosol and oxidant chemistry varies over time and space. The time scales we consider range from seasonal to glacial-interglacial variability on the global scale. We aim to answer two fundamental questions in atmospheric chemistry: 1) How do the formation pathways of sulfate and nitrate aerosols vary over space and time, and what are the implications for atmospheric chemistry and climate? 2) How has the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere changed in response to both anthropogenic and climate forcing, and what are the implications for climate feedback processes via the impact on the concentration of reduced trace gases (e.g. CH4) that affect the distribution of energy in the climate system? The main approaches that we use to answer the above questions are: 1) Measuring the isotopic composition of sulfate and nitrate from aerosol, water, snow, and ice core samples (see our laboratory facilities). 2) Modeling using global three-dimensional models of atmospheric chemistry and climate (mostly GEOS-Chem). Please see our web page for more information about ongoing research projects.

Simone Alin, NOAA

For my research interests: While I am broadly interested in intersectional/multiple stressor ocean change and its effects on marine ecosystems, human health, and coastal economies, my research focuses on carbon cycling and acidification in the California Current Ecosystem, Salish Sea, and northern Pacific Ocean. I am fortunate to be engaged with outstanding collaborators across many agencies and institutions in the U.S. and internationally on projects ranging from global ocean data management and synthesis, novel data and model visualizations, new approaches to communicating about ocean change with diverse audiences, experimental work on organismal impacts of ocean change and phytoremediation, and regional vulnerability assessment.

Alberto Aliseda, Mechanical Engineering

James Anderson, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Diego Arcas, NOAA

Virginia Armbrust, Oceanography

Edward Baker, JISAO

John Baross, Oceanography

Tim Bates, JISAO

Our research examines the effects of atmospheric particles on climate and air quality. Most of our research is carried out on research vessels looking at both naturally produced and anthropogenic aerosols in the atmosphere http://saga.pmel.noaa.gov/data/. Our current focus has been on ocean derived aerosols http://saga.pmel.noaa.gov/publications/pdfs/2012/bates_seasweep_2012JD017588.pdf although we are moving forward with measurements from unmanned aerial systems http://saga.pmel.noaa.gov/publications/pdfs/2013/amt-6-2115-2013.pdf.

David Battisti, Atmospheric Sciences

David Beauchamp, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Salmon experience a broad range of habitats and associated environmental-ecological conditions as they complete their life cycle through freshwater, estuarine, and marine systems. Salmon production is currently limited by a variety of factors that affect survival, especially during early marine periods which are believed to determine adult recruitment. The nature and magnitude of these effects are expected to change with changing climate, land and water use. Size-selective marine mortality is a prevalent feature in the dynamics of anadromous salmonid populations. We are interested in exploring how top-down and bottom-up processes vary among life stages to create critical periods that influence growth and size-selective survival to adulthood. We can address these topics through a combination of retrospective analyses of data and archival samples, direct field sampling, and modeling. Our ultimate goal is to develop mechanistically-based models that help diagnose existing limitations and predict responses by salmon and their associated food webs to climatic and anthropogenic changes. These questions are prevalent throughout the geographic range of Pacific salmon and steelhead, and opportunities exist to either focus on localized systems like Puget Sound or conduct comparative analyses and syntheses across multiple systems (e.g., California Current, Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, Inland Seas, etc.).

Cecilia Bitz, Atmospheric Sciences

I am interested in ice and climate interactions in the present, past, and future. My group mostly uses climate models, from simple reduced models to full-blown earth system models. I have also done a little field work in the Antarctic on the interactions of ice shelves, sea ice, and climate. I work on polar climates at both poles, and I often consider interactions with the global climate system. Please check out my web site if you think you might be interested in working in my group at http://www.atmos.uw.edu/~bitz and email me.

Nick Bond, JISAO

The Office of the Washington State Climatologist (OWSC) collects, disseminates and interprets climate data. It serves as a source of climate and weather information for state and local decision makers and agencies involved with drought, flooding, climate change and related issues. The research carried out by OWSC includes consideration of applied topics (marine ecosystems, human health, etc.) related to the climate. More information is available at climate.washington.edu.

Trevor Branch, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

I focus on solving biological problems through data synthesis and mathematical models and work on a variety of research projects, including: assessing the global status and future directions of marine fisheries, testing hypotheses about how fisheries affect marine food webs using stock assessments, catches, and surveys, and detecting factors that influence patterns in fishery development; the human side of fisheries, including fishing behavior and fleet dynamics, especially as related to the effect of individual transferable quotas (“catch shares”) on the environment, target fisheries, discards, and quota utilization; research on large whales, especially blue whales but also minkes and humpbacks, which has led to papers on abundance estimation, changes in population size over time, maps of occurrence and the separation of subspecies; modeling herring in Prince William Sound, delving into explanations for their collapse and failure to recover; and the effects of ocean acidification on marine seafood; how overlooking opportunistic depletion can lead to extinction in multispecies systems.

My graduate students and postdocs are currently working on modeling herring in Prince William Sound, improving Bayesian convergence time for fisheries stock assessments, developing new methods for data-limited stock assessments, examining the effects of catch shares on fisheries and ecosystems, assessing the status of blue whales in the Pacific and estimating the frequency of black swan events in ecological data.

Chris Bretherton, Atmospheric Sciences

John Bullister, NOAA

I am an Oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and hold an Affiliate Faculty Position in the School of Oceanography at UW. My current research focuses on the study of the entry of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other anthropogenic compounds into the ocean. Our group is involved in extensive global field programs such as the CLIVAR Repeat Hydrography program. A primary goal of our research is to use these compounds as time-dependent chemical tracers to quantify the rates and pathways of ocean circulation and mixing processes (and their variability). The observed distributions of these compounds in the ocean are also being used to test and evaluate numerical model simulations of key oceanic processes, and to improve estimates of the rate of anthropogenic carbon dioxide uptake in the ocean. We are also involved in studies of the importance of the ocean in the global budgets of reactive trace gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.

David Butterfield, JISAO

Wei Cheng, JISAO

I am a physical oceanographer studying ocean-sea ice-atmosphere interaction on multiple scales ranging from multi-decadal to seasonal, and from global ocean to regional seas. The goal of my research is to understand how the ocean responds to surface forcing mechanisms, and in turn, regulates the atmospheric and sea-ice processes, and also the marine ecosystem. I use a suite of tools including earth system modeling, regional ocean biophysical models, in-situ data collected from the sea, and satellite remote sensing products. My research portfolio is diverse and includes the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), Arctic sea ice predictability, and marine ecosystem and fisheries response to environmental changes in the Eastern Bering Sea, to give a few examples. At NOAA/PMEL, I work within the EcoFOCI group (linking to the FOCI web page) where cross-disciplinary work is conducted.

Edward Cokelet, NOAA

Howard Conway, Earth and Space Sciences

Joyce Cooper, Mechanical Engineering

Meghan Cronin, NOAA

Saildrone are autonomous surface vehicles that I believe will revolutionize oceanography. Their suite of surface instrumentation is similar to what we have on the NOAA Ocean Climate Station surface moorings — sensors to compute the air-sea exchanges of heat, momentum, moisture, and carbon dioxide. However the Saildrone wind sensor measures all three components of wind (u,v,w) at 10 Hz and thus potentially can be used to to directly measure wind stress. Likewise the IMU on the Saildrone’s ADCP sensor is of such high quality that we expect to be able to measure wave properties. Be on the leading edge of oceanography. Propose a project that will demonstrate the quality of these measurements and how they can be used to investigate air-sea interaction in regions extending from the equator to the Arctic. Be part of NASA SPURS-2 and TPOS-2020 (tpos2020.org). For more information, see our OCS Saildrone webpage. If this is of interest, please contact me.

Eric D’Asaro, APL/Oceanography

John Delaney, Oceanography

Jody Deming, Oceanography

Allan Devol, Oceanography

Sarah Doherty, JISAO

Dale Durran, Atmospheric Sciences

Robert Embley, NOAA

Steven Emerson, Oceanography

I approach my research, teaching and advising with a “chemical perspective” of oceanography in which the distributions of chemical concentrations and isotope ratios are used to understand biogeochemical processes and the role of the ocean in the global fluxes of oxygen and carbon. As the science of oceanography becomes more interdisciplinary, it is important to understand how chemical tracers can be used to determine rates of physical and biological oceanographic processes that are not possible to constrain otherwise. My main research interests are in the utility of gases and their isotopes for constraining net biological fluxes of metabolites in the euphotic zone and mixing processes deeper in the thermocline and deep sea. Specifically, we are studying: (1) the utility of in situ oxygen sensors on moorings and Argo floats to determine the net biological oxygen production globally and (2) the use of N2 and noble gas and isotope ratios to constrain the nitrogen cycle of the ocean. We are interested in adding a postdoctoral fellow with interests in these analytical processes or in studying gas tracers in ocean global circulation models to help interpret our analytical work.

Charles Eriksen, Oceanography

Timothy Essington, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

My lab focuses on food web interactions involving fish in marine, estuarine and freshwater habitats, and applications for sustainable fisheries. My lab conducts work in a wide range of marine ecosystems from high seas pelagic systems to the inland seas of Puget Sound. We look at links between fishery governance (e.g. rights-based fishing) and ecological conditions, and attempt to understand the potential conflicts between fisheries as they target species that occupy distinct positions in food webs. Work in my lab tends to be quantitative, involving modeling and statistical analysis of complex data sets. We conduct fieldwork and collect data, particularly in Puget Sound where we are working to understand the structure of the food web, how it varies in time and space and how it is impacted by climate change and other anthropogenic influences, such as hypoxia.

Richard Feely, NOAA/PMEL

My research interests lie in carbon cycling and ocean acidification in open-ocean and coastal regions, specifically concerning mechanisms controlling sources and sinks of anthropogenic CO₂ in the oceans, and impacts of CO₂ on marine ecosystems.

Carolyn Friedman, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Dargan Frierson, Atmospheric Sciences

I’m most interested in studying responses of the climate system to global warming, and fundamental aspects of the general circulation of the atmosphere and the ocean. For potential JISAO postdocs, I would suggest projects involving a simplified coupled atmosphere-ocean model that we’ve been running. It has idealized basins, simplified atmospheric physics, and runs quickly so many long simulations can be performed. I’d be interested in using it to continue studying the role of ocean circulation on determining rainfall patterns in the tropics and extratropics, and in studying ocean heat uptake with global warming: its patterns and influence on large-scale hydrologic and dynamical responses to warming.

Qiang Fu, Atmospheric Sciences

Professor Fu’s research areas are in atmospheric radiation and cloud processes, atmospheric circulation changes associated with global warming and their impacts on clouds and water vapor and the feedback to the climate system, the Brewer-Dobson circulation, tropical tropopause layer (TTL) and the temperature structure and changes in TTL, terrestrial aridity changes.

Vince Gallucci, Earth and Space Sciences

Daniel Grunbaum, Oceanography

Greg Hakim, Atmospheric Sciences

Many of the most important outstanding problems in Earth system science involve coupling between the atmosphere and the ocean over long timescales. Our research activity on this central theme involves two main foci: climate reconstruction using paleo-proxy data, and decadal predictions of climate variability. These problems are linked by the need to fuse information from models and observations, and by techniques used to exploit that information for understanding the evolution of the coupled system. We use ensemble approaches to these problems, and a hierarchy approach to test ideas from simple low-order models up to next-generation Earth-system models.

Dennis Hartmann, Atmospheric Sciences

Susan Hautala, Oceanography

Al Hermann, JISAO

Ray Hilborn, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Laura Hinkelman, JISAO

Dr. Hinkelman is a research scientist at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean of the University of Washington. Her research spans a range of applications of atmospheric radiative transfer. Much of her research to date has focused on the Earth’s energy budget, long-term trends in surface insolation, and the effect of clouds on atmospheric radiative transfer. Her current projects concentrate on practical application of satellite and ground-based irradiance data: evaluating the use of satellite radiative flux products in snowmelt models; examining the variability of surface insolation as a function of space, time, and cloud conditions for application to solar energy production; and evaluation of satellite radiation data products. Dr. Hinkelman has worked extensively with ground-based solar flux measurements, Monte Carlo radiative transfer, and a wide range of satellite data sets.

Robert Holzworth, Earth and Space Sciences

John Horne, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Robert Houze, Atmospheric Sciences

George Hunt, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Anitra Ingalls, Oceanography

My lab group examines the chemical signatures of microorganisms with the goal of learning about the feedbacks between the global cycles of carbon and nitrogen and climate in the past, present and future. We use the tools of mass spectrometry based metabolomics and proteomics and collaborate broadly with molecular biologists and paleoceanographers to study the metabolic capabilities of microorganisms and the chemical tracers they leave behind. We are also interested in how organic compounds mediate microbe-microbe interactions and microbe-environment interactions. With a mix of fieldwork and lab studies, we work in diverse environments across the globe.

Lyatt Jeagle, Atmospheric Sciences

Lyatt Jaeglé is interested in understanding the chemistry of the natural atmosphere and its perturbations by human activities. Her group uses global and regional models to analyze ground-based, ship, aircraft, and satellite observations of atmospheric composition. Current research projects are focused on understanding emissions, chemical transformation, and transport of gases and particles in the earth’s atmosphere.

Dan Jaffe, Atmospheric Sciences

Gregory Johnson, NOAA

Gregory Johnson is an Oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and an Affiliate Professor at UW’s School of Oceanography. He works on large-scale ocean circulation, water masses, and their variability; ocean dynamics; ocean-atmosphere interactions; and the ocean’s role in climate. He is active in global repeat hydrography programs both national and international (http://www.go-ship.org/) as well as the Argo program (http://floats.pmel.noaa.gov/index.html).

H. Paul Johnson, Oceanography

Richard Keil, Oceanography

Deborah Kelley, Oceanography

William Kessler, NOAA

Carol Ladd, NOAA

EcoFOCI is involved in extensive field and modeling research in the Chukchi and western Beaufort Seas in the Arctic, the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. The goal of EcoFOCI is to understand how climate and other physical forcing influence the physical oceanography and ecosystems in these regions. One particular focus of my research has been on the influence of mesoscale eddies on ecosystem parameters. In situ and satellite observations, along with numerical modeling, have played roles in my research. Please see the EcoFOCI web page for more information.

Craig Lee, APL/Oceanography

Evelyn Lessard, Oceanography

Marvin Lilley, Oceanography

Ron Lindsay, APL Polar Science Center

Jessica Lundquist, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Parker MacCready, Oceanography

Our most recent project is to create a daily forecast model of ocean circulation and carbon chemistry focused on Ocean Acidification in the NE Pacific and Salish Sea. This will be used by shellfish growers, among others, to try to mitigate the threat of corrosive waters. A former JISAO postdoc, Dr. Samantha Siedlecki, is part of the team, and we would very much like to bring in another postdoc.

Cliff Mass, Atmospheric Sciences

Michael McPhaden, NOAA

I study large scale ocean-interactions, ocean dynamics, and the oceans role in climate. My primary focus is on the tropics, with emphasis on El Nino and the Southern Oscillation, the monsoons, tropical Atlantic climate variability and related phenomena. Over the past 30 years I developed a network of tropical moored buoys through international partnerships to support climate research and forecasting. I specialize in the analysis and interpretation of these data, in the context of theory and dynamical models, to improve understanding of processes at work in the climate system.

Marc Miller, Marine and Environmental Affairs

Christopher Moore, NOAA

Calvin Mordy, JISAO

Charles Nittrouer, Oceanography

Andrea Ogston, Oceanography

Ivonne Ortiz, JISAO

My work focuses on spatial approaches to ecosystem based fisheries management using a variety of models and statistical analysis: food web and ecosystem modeling centered on trophic interactions, climate-to-fish models that couple oceanography, lower trophic levels, fish and fisheries, as well as development of ecosystem indicators, and how they are impacted by climate and the environment -both in the past (hindcasts) and the near and long term future (seasonal and decadal forecasts). My interests follow three major routes: informing policy and management, integrated ecosystem studies, and science communication. I collaborate closely with the Resource Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling group at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center and have joint projects with other groups working on marine mammals, essential fish habitat and innovative technologies.

James Overland, NOAA

The Arctic group at PMEL collects field observations and analyses the output from global climate models to better understand Arctic air-ice-sea interactions and their impacts on the climate system and regional ecosystems. We are looking to extend our capabilities to include ice modeling, with special interest in simulating the Chukchi and western Beaufort Seas.

Julia Parrish, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Jerome Patoux, Atmospheric Sciences

Don Percival, APL

Ted Pietsch, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Andre Punt, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Paul Quay, Oceanography

Patricia Quinn, NOAA

Tom Quinn, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Joseph Resing, JISAO

Peter Rhines, Oceanography

Jeffrey Richey, Oceanography

Ignatius Rigor, APL

Stephen Riser, Oceanography

Gabrielle Rocap, Oceanography

I am interested in the ecology and evolution of marine microbes, including phytoplankton, bacteria and viruses. We use genomic and proteomic approaches to connect organismal physiology with ecosystem function. A project of particular current interest is the community structure and functional roles of bacteria on sinking and suspended particles in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Oxygen Deficient Zone. This is a collaborative project offering opportunities for field work and close interactions with colleagues applying chemical oceanographic and modeling perspectives to the same question.

Gerard Roe, Earth and Space Sciences

Christopher Sabine, NOAA

Julian Sachs, Oceanography

I am interested in understanding how the climate has varied on a range of time and space scales. Much of my lab’s recent work has been focused on the tropical Pacific over the last 10,000 years, with an emphasis on the last 2,000 years (the Late Holocene). We use molecular and isotopic measurements in sediment cores that we recover from lakes, swamps and lagoons on islands spanning the entire tropical Pacific Ocean. We work closely with climate theoreticians here at the University of Washington and elsewhere to understand the mechanisms underlying the climate changes we observe. Applicants with expertise in geochemistry, paleoclimatology and/or climate theory are encouraged to contact us to discuss possible postdoctoral research projects.

Eric Salathe, NW Climate Center

I conduct research on regional climate change and climate change impacts, with a primary focus on the US Pacific Northwest and SE Asia. Specific projects include: regional climate modeling with WRF, extreme precipitation and flood risk, climate change impacts on Puget Sound.

Daniel Schindler, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Kenneth Sebens, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Yolande Serra, JISAO

Serra’s research focuses on improving understanding of the factors that contribute to convective initiation and organization over tropical and sub-tropical ocean and land areas, with a focus on the Western Hemisphere. These projects have included the study of tropical easterly waves, low-level jets, upper-level troughs and topographically forced diurnal circulations, and their role in initiating and organizing convection over the tropical eastern Pacific, Central America, North American monsoon and Amazon regions. Such studies contribute to improvements in our understanding of the factors that control rainfall in tropical and semi-arid climate zones, and in the representation of rainfall and its variability in regional and global models used for operational forecasts and climate projections.

Charles Simenstad, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

John Skalski, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Amy Snover, Climate Impacts Group

The Climate Impacts Group supports the development of climate resilience by advancing understanding and awareness of climate risks, and working closely with public and private entities to apply this information as they act to shape society’s future. We develop and deliver the fundamental scientific understanding, data, tools, and guidance necessary for managing the climate risks facing the people, communities, and ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest. Current areas of focus for the group include science in support of resilience to floods (due to sea level rise, changing streamflow and extreme precipitation), clean cool water for fish (projecting changes in wetlands and stream temperature), successful adaptation to a changing climate (frameworks for defining and evaluating success), tribal climate resilience (supporting the development of tribal capacity for vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning), equity in climate adaptation, and the theory and practice of linking scientific knowledge with practical action.

Rolf Sonnerup, JISAO

Phyliss Stabeno, NOAA

EcoFOCI is involved in extensive field and modeling research in the Chukchi and western Beaufort Seas in the Arctic, the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. Our goal is to understand how climate and other physical forcing influence the physical oceanography and the ecosystems in these regions. Research is based on in-depth analysis of oceanographic and atmospheric data in the context of a modern understanding of atmospheric, oceanic and sea-ice dynamical processes. Please see our web page (ecofoci.noaa.gov/) for more information.

Kathleen Stafford, APL

Eric Steig, Earth and Space Sciences

Adam Summers, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Adrienne Sutton, PMEL

My research centers around the patterns of air-sea CO₂ exchange and ocean acidification in open ocean, coastal, and coral reef environments. Specifically, I am interested in using interdisciplinary approaches to explore how physical and biological mechanisms, such as the El Nino/Southern Oscillation and coral reef metabolism, drive variations in ocean carbon chemistry across time and space. These approaches include using autonomous instrumentation on buoys and other platforms to better understand natural variability and long-term trends in ocean carbon.

Abigail Swann, Atmospheric Sciences

LuAnne Thompson, Oceanography

The largest exchanges of heat between the ocean and the atmosphere occur in mid-latitude western boundary current extensions. These heat exchanges are driven by ocean heat transport convergence, both in the mean and on interannual time-scales. Investigation of the interaction of the ocean and atmosphere in regions of strong ocean currents has been hampered by biases in low-resolution ocean climate models and a lack of long-term ocean observations. Records of satellite sea level, sea surface temperature, cloud cover, and surface fluxes of heat are now available for 20 years or more, affording new opportunities to investigate the interaction of the atmosphere and ocean on interannual time scales. By combining satellite and in situ observations with climate model output available from the Climate Model Intercomparison Project version 5 as well as new high-resolution couple ocean-atmosphere model simulations, we are investigating the role of the oceans in storing and transporting heat and fresh water, including where and when stored heat in the ocean is released back to the atmosphere.

Joel Thornton, Atmospheric Sciences

My research focuses on the chemistry of aerosols and clouds, its impact on air quality and climate, and how this chemistry is impacted by couplings between anthropogenic and natural emissions. We use a combination of in situ observations, laboratory process studies, and modeling to study how aerosol particles form and grow from transformations of biogenic hydrocarbons, how sea spray aerosols affect air quality in coastal regions and the cleansing ability of the marine boundary layer as a source for reactive halogens, and how oceanic shipping emissions affect maritime cloud microphysics and vertical development.

Vasily Titov, NOAA

Glenn VanBlaricom, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Ed Waddington, Earth Space Sciences

J. Michael Wallace, Atmospheric Sciences

Muyin Wang, JISAO

My research interests are in the climate and climate change in the Arctic; possible connections of Arctic climate change with middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere; prediction of Arctic sea ice; climate variability in the North Pacific, and impact of climate change on the ecosystems. Climate model assessment (CMIP3 and CMIP5) is part of the work we have been doing in search for a better way to use these state-of-the-art models.

Mark Warner, Oceanography

Yong Wei, JISAO

Dr. Wei’s main expertise is hydrodynamics modeling and hazard assessment of long-wave including tsunamis and storm surge and waves, methods and theory of tsunami model forecast, tsunami/seismic source inversion, deterministic and probabilistic assessment of coastal flooding, geophysical data analysis, water wave mechanics, and tsunami loads and effects on structures. Dr. Wei has extensive experience in development of high-resolution tsunami inundation forecast models. He is also actively working on hydrodynamics modeling to differentiate paleo-deposits of tsunamis and storms. Over the past years, Dr. Wei has led the effort to develop probabilistic tsunami design zone maps for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) standards. He is now a PI of several projects to investigate deterministic and probabilistic tsunami inundation for coastal infrastructures.

William Wilcock, Oceanography

Kevin Williams, APL/Oceanography

Dale Winebrenner, Earth and Space Sciences

Rebecca Woodgate, APL/Oceanography

My research focuses on the physics of the Ocean-ice-atmosphere system of the Arctic, with an emphasis on the collection and analysis of in situ oceanographic data, especially from moorings. I am interested particularly in the flows of Pacific and Atlantic waters within the Arctic; the exchanges from the shelves to the basins; the Pacific inflow to the Arctic via the Bering Strait; and the causes and impacts of Arctic sea-ice reduction, including the interdisciplinary consequences of enhanced oceanic mixing in the Arctic. My PhD was in ocean modeling, but now I focus on observational work, working mostly from ships, with a specialization of mooring work in ice-covered regions. I collaborate with modelers, biologists and chemists to give an interdisciplinary aspect to my work. In the past, I have also worked in Antarctic oceanography and am keen to pursue how the lessons we learn in the Arctic may be applied to the Antarctic polar region.

Graham Young, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Dongxiao Zhang, JISAO

Large scale ocean circulation and its role in climate and climate variability. Impacts of changing circulation on marine ecosystem and chemistry. Tropical oceanography and air-sea interaction. High latitude processes that link to Thermohaline Circulation.