Dr. Sarah N Giddings : Associate Professor

Dr. Sarah N Giddings

Associate Professor

Dr. Giddings started as an Assistant Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in January 2014 in the Integrated Oceanography Division. She has built her Environmental Fluids and Coastal Oceanography Laboratory including a wonderful research team and established research projects locally in Southern CA and beyond. Additional information on Dr. Giddings including a current CVpublicationseducation & training, and teaching & outreach experience can be found here. A fun interview and video highlighting the Giddings’ lab work was published by SIO in early 2016!

Helen Zhang : PhD student

Helen Zhang

PhD student

Helen is a PhD student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She joined the Giddings lab in the summer 2021 and she is co-advised with Dr. Mark Merrifield and Dr. Uwe Send. Using a combination of observational data and model outputs, Helen is working on characterizing the circulation off the coast of San Diego in order to study the alongshore transport of nutrients, larvae, and pollutants. She is interested in examining the impact and interactions between the ocean and the urban environment. Helen got her BA in math and physics from Reed College in 2018. Prior to Scripps, she studied the long term impacts of climate change on the abyssal ocean at the University of Washington with Dr. Caitlin Whalen and Dr. Nirnimesh Kumar.
Niv Anidjar : PhD student

Niv Anidjar

PhD student

Niv is a PhD Student who joined the lab in the summer of 2022 following Niv’s first year of study in the physical oceanography curricular group. Niv’s intradisciplinary interests include ocean-estuary exchange, coastal and estuarine biophysical interactions, and estuarine morphodynamics. Niv is also interested in the oceanographic and scientific pedagogy, as well as the social, economic, and political context of oceanographic research and institutions. Niv received a B.Sc. in atmospheric and oceanic sciences from UCSD in 2019.

Sierra Byrne : PhD student

Sierra Byrne

PhD student

Sierra is a PhD candidate and NSF GRFP fellow co-advised by Sarah Giddings and Mark Merrifield at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She is interested in coastal physics with a specific focus on river plumes and storm conditions. Her first chapter investigates climate-scale variability in the transport of small river plumes from Los Peñasquitos Lagoon using 105 years of daily salinity measurements from the Scripps Pier. The rest of her thesis focuses on understanding event-scale small plume dynamics using a combination of observations (from the PiNC experiment) and modeling. Sierra received her B.S. in oceanic and atmospheric sciences from UCSD in 2021. In fall of 2022, she began the applied ocean sciences program at Scripps and then joined the Giddings Lab shortly thereafter.
Victoria Boatwright : PhD student

Victoria Boatwright

PhD student

Victoria is a Physical Oceanography PhD student in the Petrik and Giddings research groups studying physical processes influencing biogeochemistry in estuarine and coastal regions, particularly in Southern California. She received her B.S. in Biological Physics from Georgetown University in 2022. Past research topics includes chlorophyll distributions within eddies in the California Current System from a biogeochemical ROMS model; impacts to primary productivity through mixing from offshore wind turbines in the North Sea through a turbulence-resolving LES simulation; and metrics for quantitatively monitoring, verifying, and reporting on carbon sequestration from marine carbon dioxide removal projects in ocean models. Her overarching research interests include submesoscale-to-mesoscale ocean dynamics, coupled physical and biogeochemical modeling, simulating coastal biophysical interactions, and climate change impacts to these processes. A goal of her research is to understand physical mechanisms that influence ecological communities and natural resources to inform decision-making for conservation and management.

Dr. Akanksha Gupta : postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Akanksha Gupta

postdoctoral researcher

Akanksha is a postdoctoral researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), working with Dr. Falk Feddersen and Dr. Sarah Giddings. Her current research focuses on data assimilation to improve the efficiency of a pathogen forecast model in the San Diego region. Prior to joining the Feddersen and Giddings groups, Akanksha was a postdoctoral researcher in the Marine Physical Laboratory at SIO, where she worked with Dr. Xuanting Hao and Dr. William R. Young from March 2023 to March 2025. Her research interests broadly span environmental and geophysical fluid dynamics, with a particular focus on particle transport in the ocean as influenced by a range of physical processes and their interactions, including surface and internal waves, mean flows, and topographic effects. Akanksha earned her Ph.D. from IIT Kanpur, India, in 2022 under the supervision of Dr. Anirban Guha. Her doctoral work focused on understanding the interaction of surface waves with a rippled seafloor, both with and without mean currents, and investigating their effects on tracer particles such as pathogens, sediments, (micro)plastics, algae, and nutrients.

former lab members

Dr. Duncan Wheeler : PhD graduate

Dr. Duncan Wheeler

PhD graduate

Duncan Wheeler is a postdoc in the Department of Earth & Climate Sciences at Tufts University using observations from Greenland and Alaska to study ocean-glacier interactions. Duncan received his PhD in physical oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in April 2024. Duncan is interested in interdisciplinary research that bridges the social and physical sciences to identify how fundamental physical research can be done in a way that most effectively benefits society. For his thesis, first he examined the ways in which large infragravity frequency waves can impact shallow estuaries, mainly through turbulent mixing and its resulting effects on salinity, temperature, and oxygen. Second, he studied cultural conflicts that arise in academia and how they affect researchers through interviews asking academics about various expectations. Previously Duncan received a Bachelor of Science in Physics from MIT, where he worked on optics research with applications to photovoltaics.

Dr. Lauren Kim : PhD graduate

Dr. Lauren Kim

PhD graduate

Lauren is an Environmental Scientist at theState Water Resources Control Board in San Diego. She completed her PhD in May 2024 at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography working with co-advisors Levy, Giddings and Merrifield. Broadly, she is interested in coastal ocean processes and their interactions with land. Her first chapter focused on the morphodynamic responses of a dune-backed beach during high-energy storm conditions in the Outer Banks, NC while her other dissertation chapters focused on the influence of coastal processes and morphodynamics at a low-inflow-estuary mouth on freshwater resources upstream. Originally from Los Angeles, she received her BS in physics with a minor in physiology from Cal Poly, Pomona in 2017.

Dr. Elizabeth Brasseale : former postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Elizabeth Brasseale

former postdoctoral researcher

Elizabeth Brasseale is currently a Postdoctoral researcher in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at the University of Washington using oceanography to interpret eDNA samples for . She was a postdoctoral scholar in the Giddings lab from September 2020-December 2022 where she modeled water quality as a function of pollutant decay and sinking using regional ocean models as part of the U.S. Coastal Research Program. Previously, Elizabeth studied estuarine-shelf interactions and larval transport of marine invasive species in the Pacific northwest during her doctoral studies at the University of Washington, advised by Parker MacCready.

Dr. Alex Simpson : former postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Alex Simpson

former postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Simpson is a Research Civil Engineer in the Coastal Observation and Analysis Branch  at the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, Field Research Facility, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center. They were a postdoctoral scholar in the Giddings lab from February 2022-December 2023. Alex's dissertation focus was remote sensing of nearshore features using drones and X-Band radar, with topics ranging from frontal shear instabilities to internal wave transformation. They completed their PhD with Dr. Merrick Haller at Oregon State University in December 2021. At SIO, Alex investigated how small river plumes interact with the surf zone through the PiNC field campaign at Los Penasquitos Lagoon. They also worked on low-inflow mouth morphodynamics, which they continue to work on in their current position with USACE.

Dr. Emily Lemagie : former postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Emily Lemagie

former postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Lemagie is currently a Research Physical Scientist at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) studying ocean dynamics and the impacts on marine ecosystems in the North Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, and U.S. Arctic. She was a postdoctoral scholar at SIO in the Giddings lab from December 2020 - May 2021 when she worked on examining ocean/estuarine exchange across multiple estuaries. She received her PhD in Physical Oceanography at Oregon State University in 2018 and worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution before joining the Giddings lab group. Emily’s research investigates the physical and biological linkages and transport pathways in both estuarine and coastal environments on immediate to climatic timescales. She has focused on estuarine residence time, river plume dynamics, and across-shelf exchange in order to determine the immediate and long-term effects of event to climate-scale changes on coastal ecosystems.

Dr. Xiaodong Wu : former postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Xiaodong Wu

former postdoctoral researcher

Xiaodong is a faculty member at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in the School of Oceanography. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography working with both Dr. Giddings and Dr. Falk Feddersen from March 2018 - December 2021 where he focused on regional ocean model development and studied transport processes in the San Diego region as part of the CSIDE project. He received a Masters degree in Marine Science at the Nanjing University in China and a PhD in Physical Oceanography from the University of South Carolina at Columbia. His research investigates the physical processes responsible for cross-shore exchange. He focuses on wind-driven circulation, submesoscale processes and baroclinic instability.
Dr. Alma Carolina Castillo Trujillo : former postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Alma Carolina Castillo Trujillo

former postdoctoral researcher

Alma Carolina Castillo Trujillo currently is the head of modeling at atdepth. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from September 2018 - February 2021 working with Giddings and Pawlak using numerical models and observations as part of the SLOMO project to study the circulation around the Seychelles Islands. She received a Bachelor of Science in Oceanography from UABC in Ensenada, México and a Masters and PhD in Physical Oceanography, both from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She has participated in several educational programs for the Hawaiian and Mexican communities and would like to establish similar outreach in Tijuana and San Diego.

Dr. Angelica Rodriguez : PhD graduate and former postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Angelica Rodriguez

PhD graduate and former postdoctoral researcher

Angelica is a Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/CalTech focused on sea level science and heavily involved in the new NASA SWOT mission. She received her PhD in Physical Oceanography from SIO in May 2019 where she focused on the impacts of wave-current interaction on small scale buoyant coastal outflows and shoal-channel exchange in San Diego Bay.  Prior to her current JPL position, she was a postdoctoral scholar with the Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation at SIO and worked as an Oceanographic Scientist at the Unmanned Maritime Vehicle Laboratory – Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific. She holds a B.S. in Physics with Specialization in Earth Science and a minor in Environmental Systems. Broadly, she is interested in the interaction between estuaries and the coastal ocean and applied sea level science.

Dr. Madeleine Harvey : PhD graduate

Dr. Madeleine Harvey

PhD graduate

Maddie is an Oceanographer at Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport. She completed her PhD in the Giddings lab in November 2019 where she used field observations to better understand coastal and estuarine dynamics. Specifically, she examined how sediment transport in the surf zone and rivers can impact the morphology and closure of the mouth of an estuary and how the mouth morphology affects physical, chemical, and biological processes within the estuary. She received a Bachelor of Science from Brown University in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2012. As an avid sailor growing up, her love of the ocean developed at a young age and grew into a desire to study ocean and coastal processes in order to work to devise solutions to the problems facing our oceans and estuaries today.

Dr. Isabella B. Arzeno Soltero : PhD graduate

Dr. Isabella B. Arzeno Soltero

PhD graduate

Isabella is an Assistant Professor at UCLA in the School of Engineering. Isa was a graduate student studying physical oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, co-advised by Dr. Sarah Giddings and Dr. Geno Pawlak. She used observations to study the interaction of currents with rough bathymetry, on different spatial scales. She was also the lead graduate student on the SLOMO project studying flow around the island nation of the Seychelles. She received a Bachelor of Science in Earth Systems and a Masters of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering, both from Stanford University. She completed postdoctoral positions at UC Irvine and Stanford University examining seaweed aquaculture before starting her faculty position. She is committed to interdisciplinary research, research that integrates socio-environmental systems, and actively engages with local communities as shown in her work that started as an AGU Thriving Earth Exchange fellow.

Dr. Jacqueline McSweeney : former Postdoctoral Researcher

Dr. Jacqueline McSweeney

former Postdoctoral Researcher

Jack is an assistant professor at Stoney Brook. She worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher with Dr. Giddings and Dr. Feddersen on the CSIDE project. She received her PhD at Rutgers University studying sediment dynamics in the Delaware Estuary and also did a postdoc studying inner-shelf dynamics at OSU.

Heitor Schueroff de Souza : former undergraduate researcher, UCSD computer science & cognitive science

Heitor Schueroff de Souza

former undergraduate researcher, UCSD computer science & cognitive science

Heitor was an undergraduate researcher working on expanding upon the model visualization tool, FlowWeaver, originally developed by Neil Banas.

Adrian Urrea : former undergraduate researcher, UCSD mechanical and aerospace engineering

Adrian Urrea

former undergraduate researcher, UCSD mechanical and aerospace engineering

Adrian was an undergraduate researcher working on building biosensors to be put onto oysters. The sensors measured the oyster shell gape (how far open it is) to see its response to environmental stressors.

Mia Gonzalez : former undergraduate researcher, UCSD electrical engineering

Mia Gonzalez

former undergraduate researcher, UCSD electrical engineering

Mia was an undergraduate researcher working on expanding upon the model visualization tool, FlowWeaver, originally developed by Neil Banas.

Abhishek Kumar : former undergraduate researcher,UCSD computer science & cognitive science

Abhishek Kumar

former undergraduate researcher,UCSD computer science & cognitive science

Abishek was an undergraduate researcher working on expanding upon the model visualization tool, FlowWeaver, originally developed by Neil Banas.

Corey Shono : former undergraduate researcher, UCSD chemistry department

Corey Shono

former undergraduate researcher, UCSD chemistry department

Corey is a Data Scientist, Energy Forecasting Lead at Duke Energy Corporation. He worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Giddings lab comparing different ocean model particle tracking schemes.