Team


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Dr. Kelin Hu

Ph.D, 2003, East China Normal University, China
Leading modeling expert
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Research Interests
:

Modeling of storm surge, hurricane waves, sediment transports and morphological changes in coastal and estuarine areas.


           

Ahmed Khalifa

Starting Fall 2023
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Ahmed Khalifa was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt – the city AKA the Bride of the Mediterranean. He has been interested in earth surface processes since childhood and has pursued this interest through a B.S. and an M.S. in civil engineering at Alexandria University, Egypt and into a research career in coastal engineering. Ahmed’s dedicated work and understanding of the physics behind engineering practices gained him a research position among 24 candidates out of two thousands of his peer who applied for the National Water Research Center (NWRC), Egypt. Ahmed worked for 5 years at the Coastal Research Institute (CoRI) under the umbrella of the NWRC where he had the opportunity to assess – through research and consultancy – many coastal hazards and phenomena in many zones on the Nile delta such as erosion/deposition, shoreline change, storm surge, and coastal flooding. Ahmed longed to expand his understanding to larger spatial and temporal scales, so now, he is undertaking a PhD in Prof. Meselhe’s lab at the River-Coastal Science and Engineering Department, Tulane University.

Ahmed considers himself very lucky to be capable of pursuing a research career and working on two of the most engineered coastal deltas in the world – the Nile and the Mississippi. Ahmed is part of a team studying morphodynamic landscape evolution in the Mississippi River Delta. He is in the process of developing a computationally efficient biophysical model that consists of three components: (1) a three-layered 3D hydrodynamic model, (2) a 2D morphodynamic model, and (3) a recently developed marsh inundation framework. The applications of this new biophysical model include examine hundreds of environmental drivers’ permutations, climate change projections, and optimization of sediment diversion operations.

Graduate Students


       

Claire Kemick

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Claire is originally from Pennsylvania where she studied environmental science and architecture. Her research interests are fluvial geomorphology, the role remote-sensing plays in understanding the relationship between coastal processes and vegetation, observational science, and numerical modeling. She is also interested in finding creative ways to represent data in plain language to bridge the gap between researchers and communities.
 
Research interests:
Coastal hydrodynamics, Vegetation dynamics, and Remote sensing.
 
Contacts:

Ali Abdelrahim

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Ali earned a BSc in civil engineering in 2017 at Port Said University, Egypt. His graduation project focused on studying flushing of Port Said fishing port using numerical model MIKE21 and reduction of reflected waves on concrete blocks quay walls using physical model. He received a MSc in coastal engineering and port development in 2022 at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the Netherlands. Ali’s thesis studied the impact of oblique waves on dune erosion volume using process-based model XBeach. 
 
Research interests:
Coastal hydrodynamics, coastal morphodynamics, process-based modeling, coastal systems, and coastal hazards.
 
Contacts:

           

Emma House

           Starting Fall 2022

Originally from Rhode Island (the Ocean State), Emma’s educational background is in environmental engineering from the University of Delaware. Driven by a data-scarce master’s thesis project, her future research interests include numerical modeling of riverine and coastal areas and using machine learning techniques for improved water resource monitoring and flood predictions. In her free time, she enjoys spending time outside, traveling, and making pottery. Emma is passionate about environmental equity, climate change impact mitigation, and intentional positivity.

 

Sherif Ahmed

Starting Spring 2022
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Research Interests:

Hydrodynamics, morphodynamics, sediment transport and numerical modelling in fluvial and coastal areas.

 

           

Laura Manuel

Starting Fall 2020
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Research Interests:

Hydraulic modeling with sediment and nutrient transport in riverine, estuarine, and coastal systems for the purposes of developing operational forecasting models.

Eric White

Starting Fall 2018
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Research Interests:

Eric White is a licensed professional engineer who is originally from Pennsylvania. He completed his BS in Agricultural & Biological Engineering from Penn State in 2007 and followed that with an MS in Biological & Environmental Engineering from Cornell University in 2010. His MS thesis research was focused on numerical modeling of rainfall-runoff processes in saturated areas of the Ethiopian Highlands. After finishing his MS, Eric worked for the City of Philadelphia, where he was a member of the Water Department’s modeling unit; his work there dealt with urban stormwater managment and flooding/risk assessment. In 2013, Eric picked up and moved south to Louisiana to work in the coastal restoration industry. Since then, his professional work has focused primarily on the modeling analyses that underlie the state’s Coastal Master Plan. Eric lives with his wife Sarah, a troublemaking cat named Frank, and a sweet (but simpleminded) dog Coda, in Baton Rouge.
 
Eric’s PhD research focus is on hydrologic and hydraulic numerical modeling and developing algorithmic methods for selecting and applying appropriate routing methods in real-time forecast modeling frameworks at the continental scale. He is interested in the tradeoffs between computational efficiencies and the predictive skill of models and how these tradeoffs may impact decisionmakers and end-users of hydrologic and hydraulic models.

Undergraduate Students


 

 

Kiley Marandino

Starting Spring 2022

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 Kiley is originally from Miami, Florida where her love for the environment started. She is in the undergraduate class of 2025 at Tulane University and currently studying to earn her chemical engineering degree. Kiley hopes to someday use her degree to help work against climate change. In her free time, she loves spending time in nature and being with her family.

Research Interests:

Environmental Engineering.

Sophie Ohtake

Starting Fall 2022

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Sophie is an undergraduate at Tulane University studying Cellular and Molecular Biology on a pre-med track. She is originally from Seattle, Washington. When she is not studying, she enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and playing sports.

 

Mikey Sison

Starting Fall 2022

 

Alumni and former group members


          

Dr. Md Nazmul Azim Beg

           2019-2023

Ph.D., 2019, University of Coimbra, Portugal
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Research Interests:

Hydrological and hydraulic model development, morphological modeling of river and coast, and multi-phase modeling with CFD.

 

           

Katelyn Keller

Fall 2020-Spring 2022
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 Katelyn received her B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2015. She continued her education at Tulane University under Dr. Meselhe and recently earned her M.S. in August of 2022. During her completion of the program, she researched and published her Master’s Thesis titled “Numerical Investigation of Marsh Terracing Design    Parameters to Optimize Performance as a Coastal Restoration Technique.” Currently, she is employed at the US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District as a Hydraulic Engineer within their H&H Engineering branch. She will be working with the Corps as a numeric modeler, aiding in the development of numerous coastal restoration projects throughout the Louisiana coast.

Research Interests:

Modeling watersheds for flood impact and coastal erosion assessment; Flood mitigation techniques; River restoration techniques.

 

Lea Goldstein

Spring 2022-Spring 2023

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Lea Goldstein is a senior at Tulane University studying Geology and Anthropology with a GIS studies concentration. She is from Charlotte NC, and recently completed a GIS based internship with the North Carolina Dept. of Marine Fisheries. 

Research Interests:

Coastal Geology, Sediment Transport, Natural Disasters.