Science · 202601
SWOT & the 2025 Kamchatka tsunami
Dispersive tsunami observations from space constrain near-trench tsunami generation during the 2025 Kamchatka earthquake.
SDSU Coastal Engineering Lab
Coastal hazards, sensing, uncertainty and hydrosphere engineering.
Our research combines observations, numerical models and stochastic methods to understand extreme events in the hydrosphere and their impacts on coastal communities and infrastructure.
Community ToolsExplore Skyplot and SextantPhone tools for observing and understanding the sky.Research
Research areas
Extreme events
Tsunami
Earthquake, landslide, volcanic and meteorological tsunami generation, propagation, coastal response and source processes.
Risk and probabilityUncertainty
Probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment, uncertain earthquake sources, bathymetry errors, sea-level rise and random fields.
ObservationsSensing
GNSS-IR, ocean-bottom pressure, InSAR and other in-situ and space-based techniques for observing the hydrosphere.
Applied engineeringOther Studies
Hydrodynamic modeling, tidal-flow design studies, and engineering analyses beyond the main tsunami and sensing themes.
Featured research
Selected research highlights
Four research themes spanning tsunami observations, volcanic forcing, probabilistic hazard, and coastal GNSS sensing.
Volcanic tsunamis02
Planetary Lamb waves & global winds
Atmospheric-wave physics, global winds, and tsunami generation motivated by the 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption.
Probabilistic tsunami hazard03
PTHA under uncertainty & sea-level rise
Probabilistic hazard frameworks combine uncertain earthquake sources, tides, and changing sea level to quantify future tsunami risk.
GNSS-IR04
Water level & waves from GNSS reflections
Multi-GNSS interferometric reflectometry retrieves coastal water-level and wave information from reflected navigation signals.
People
Current student researchers
Graduate, undergraduate, and doctoral researchers working across hydrosphere engineering, sensing, and coastal hazards.
Dispersion of contaminants.
View research posterWater-borne biological hazards in salmon farming.
GNSS-IR.
Tsunami generation models.