COASTAL HAZARDS @ VIRGINIA TECH

Former Postdoctoral Scholars

  • Wei Cheng
  • Stephanie Smallegan

Graduate Program Alumni

  • Mary Anderson: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2010). Thesis: Numerical and experimental investigations to understand the effects of coastal vegetation of wave propagation. Current position: Coastal engineer U.S. Army Engineer Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory.
  • Lauren Augustin: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2007). Thesis: Laboratory experiments and numerical modeling of wave attenuation through artificial vegetation. Last position: Coastal engineer HDR Shiner Moseley (deceased).
  • Gregery Balsmeier: M.E. in Civil Engineering (2007). Research Report: Physical model of wave damping by vegetation following wave breaking. Current position: Lieutenant Commander U.S. Navy.
  • Wei Cheng: Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (2015). The MEso-SCAle Particle Transport model (MESCAPT) for studying sediment dynamics during storms and tsunamis . Current position: Postdoctoral scholar Texas A&M University, Galveston.
  • Nicholas Cox: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2011). Thesis: The influence of nearshore bars on infragravity energy at the shoreline. Current position: Coastal engineer Moffatt and Nichol.
  • Lauren McNeill Dunkin: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2010). Thesis: Variability in long wave runup as a function of nearshore bathymetric features. Current position: Coastal engineer U.S. Army Engineer Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (Joint Airborne Lidar Technical Center of Expertise).
  • Celso Ferreira: Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (2012). Thesis: Quantification of hurricane surge damage in coastal bays as a function of dune and wetland characteristics with application to climate change. Current position: Assistant Professor of civil engineering at George Mason University.
  • Ashley Frey: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2009). Thesis: The impact of climate change on hurricane flooding, inundation, property damages, and population affected. Current position: Coastal engineer U.S. Army Engineer Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory.
  • Rajat Katyal: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2009). Thesis: Development of parameterized surge response functions for coastal bays. Current position: Offshore engineer Ramboll Oil and Gas.
  • Nicholas Loder: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2008). Thesis: An evaluation of the potential of coastal wetlands for hurricane surge and wave attenuation reduction. Current position: Civil engineer Reynolds, Smith, and Hills.
  • Yi Liu: Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (2018). Thesis: Investigation of the spatiotemporal evolution of tropical cyclone storm surge under sea level rise. Current position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Wisconsin Sea Grant.
  • Roberto Marivela-Colmenarejo: Ph.D. in Geosciences (2017). Thesis: Numerical perspective on tsunami hazards and their mitigation by coastal vegetation.
  • Mir Emad Mousavi: M.E. in Ocean Engineering (2009). Research Report: Wave dynamics in random cylinder arrays analogous to wetland vegetation. Current position: Graduate student at Texas A&M University.
  • Erin Rooney: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2011). Thesis topic: Testing accuracy and convergence of GPUSPH (Graphical Processing Unit Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics) for free surface flows. Current position: Coastal engineer HDR.
  • Stephanie Smallegan: Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (2016). Thesis: Morphological change of a developed barrier island due to hurricane forcing. Current position: Assistant Professor of civil engineering at University of South Alabama.
  • Youn Kyung Song: Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering (2013) & M.S. in Ocean Engineering (2009). Thesis: Long wave dynamics in the presence of macro-roughness. Current position: Postdoctoral scholar at Texas A&M University.
  • Hui Tang: Ph.D. in Geosciences (2017). Thesis: Forward and inverse modeling of tsunami sediment transport. Current position: Postdoctoral scholar University of Arizona.
  • Ikpoto Udoh: Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering (2012). Thesis: Robust hurricane surge response functions. Current position: Offshore engineer Houston Offshore Engineering.
  • Nicholas Taylor: M.S. in Civil Engineering (2014). Thesis: Development and uncertainty quantification of hurricane surge response functions and sea-level rise adjustments for coastal bays. Current position: Engineer CDM Smith.
  • Yongqian Yang: Ph.D in Civil Engineering (2016). Thesis: Impact of patchy vegetation on wave and runup dynamics. Current position: Research engineer Mathworks.
  • Amir Zainali: Ph.D. in Geosciences (2016). Thesis: High-fidelity numerical simulation of shallow water waves. Current position: Fellow Insight Data Science

Former Undergraduate Scholars

Will McHugh
Adrian Santiago Tate
Nicole Abramson
Charles Babbitt
Mallory Barkdull
Philip Blackmar
Brock Bosack
Michael Brown
Haley Canham
Brandon Cooper
​​Rachel Corrigan
​Samuel Dellinger
 Jose DeLuna
Sunil Divakar
Adi Fine
Sean Finn
Kelli Gallt ​
Kathryn Hagan
Jacob Heisey
Chelsea Humbyrd
Steven Keith
​Joseph Mullenax
​Robert Noble
​Drake Oaks
Evan Pearce
David Piazza
Leah Potts
Nancy Streu
Jordan Schaefer
Cynthia Vittone
Nicholas Zinck
​Credits: Background photo courtesy of Sadatsugu Tomizawa (Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

© Jennifer L. Irish & Robert Weiss. All Rights Reserved.