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Contact details

Position: 
Group Head of Marine Physics and Ocean Climate
Group: 
Marine Physics and Ocean Climate
Site: 
Liverpool
Email: 
laou at noc.ac.uk
Telephone: 
+44 (0)151 795 4811

Profile

Biography

I am a principal scientist at the National Oceanography Centre. I lead the Coastal Ocean Processes team and I am Associate Head for Marine Physics and Ocean Climate.

I am a coastal scientist working at the intersection between physical oceanography, physical geography, and coastal engineering. I have broad interests in coastal, estuarine and shelf seas dynamics, in particular in relation to sediment transport, turbulence and mixing, coastal hazards, and land-ocean transfer processes. My work primarily involves observational and modelling process studies. The overall scientific challenge is to understand how the balance of operative processes control the behaviour and evolution of coastal seas and estuaries. One outcome is to improve integrated predictive systems for coastal and shelf seas under climate and anthropogenic changes.

Topics of interest include:

  • Coastal and estuarine hydro- and sediment dynamics
  • Coastal hazards
  • Salt dynamics and intrusion
  • Fluxes at the sediment-water interface
  • Interactions between offshore renewable energy installations and the marine environment
  • Multiphase modelling approaches for geophysical applications

Background

I joined the then Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in January 2008 as a sediment dynamicist. Prior to this, I obtained a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University (Jan. 2008), working on two-phase modelling of granular sediment for sheet flow and scour. I also obtained a dual Master of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University and Ecole Centrale de Lyon in 2001.