Research Projects

NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)

Extreme winds and flooding have been responsible for the costliest and deadliest natural disasters in recent years. Many of these disasters have occurred in coastal cities...

PhD: Matt Birtman (2026)

Stereo video cameras and a directional array of wave probes to reconstruct the water surface in 3D. This allowed him to investigate how waves break, how often they break, and how the energy...

National Science Foundation Coastline and People (CoPe)

Explored how mangrove age, density, and structure influence wave attenuation and coastal erosion reduction. By comparing young, intermediate, and mature mangrove models under controlled wave conditions...

DARPA

SEAHIVE® is an advanced marine and estuarine protection system featuring perforated hexagonal prismatic elements engineered to dissipate wave energy through internal turbulence...

National Science Foundation

Rapid intensification of hurricanes as they approach landfall can pose a significant risk to coastal communities because of the shortened time windows available for response planning...

The goal of this project was to determine the effect that sea spray has on the bulk momentum transfer coefficient between the air and water in very high winds...

DRI (Office of Naval Research)

The main goal of this research is to improve coastal wind forecast capabilities which have been known to have significant errors within 6 km of the shoreline...

CARTHE (Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative)

CARTHE is a collaborative research consortium that studies the transport and fate of crude oil and its impact on marine and coastal ecosystems following the Deepwater Horizon blowout event in April 2010...

PI: Diego Lirman

Coral reefs function as submerged breakwaters reducing wave action and providing flood-reduction benefits for coastal communities. Although the wave-reducing capacity of coral reefs has been associated with wave breaking and friction...

PI: Antonio Nanni , UM CAE

The impact of recent hurricanes in the southern United States demonstrates the vulnerability of coastal communities to the destructive forces of strong winds and high flooding...

(GOMRI-2015-V-0258)

Transport of oil droplets in the upper water column subject to breaking waves and the transport of oiled sprays in wind over waves, Specifically, using high winds in the ASIST...