My dissertation focused on estuarine hydrodynamics, an area that I continue to research. I investigated the intratidal and residual dynamics of strongly forced, strongly stratified estuaries. This work was mainly focused on analysis of in-situ observations of velocity, salinity, temperature, and turbulence from instruments we deployed in July 2005, July 2006, September 2008, and September 2009 in the Snohomish River Estuary near Everett WA as part of the large COHerent STructures in Rivers and Estuaries eXperiment (COHSTREX) project aimed at investigating the connections between surface signatures and in-situ water properties.

Moorings with in-situ instrumentation before deployment in the Snohomish River Estuary, July 2006

The dramatic intratidal variability in strongly forced, strongly stratified estuaries plays a critical role in creating the observed residual circulation thus tying together all of these processes.

I have continued to investigate fronts via observations in a partially mixed estuary, South San Francisco Bay, to elucidate processes in frontogenesis and shoal/channel interactions which are common amongst estuarine systems.

At SIO, I have continued research in residual dynamics in macrotidal, and mesotidal shallow estuaries via both observations and numerical simulations. We have