Education

Photo of Arthur B. Baggeroer
Arthur B. Baggeroer
Professor of Mechanical, Ocean and Electrical Engineering, Ford Professor of Engineering, Emeritus Home Phone: (617) 253-4336 Interest Areas: acoustics, sensing Website Website

Ocean acoustics, sonar array processing, acoustic telemetry of the ocean and matched field array processing.

Photo of George Barbastathis
George Barbastathis
Singapore Research Professor of Optics; Professor of Mechanical Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-1960 Interest Areas: optics, autonomous imaging Website Website

Physics and engineering of 3D optical systems for use in autonomous devices to capture digital holographic images of ocean species (e.g. plankton) and multi-phase flows.

Photo of Tanja Bosak
Tanja Bosak
Assistant Professor of Geobiology Home Phone: (617) 324-3959 Interest Areas: microbiology, geology Website Website

Co-evolution of life and the environment on early Earth; study of the microfossil record associated with major climatic and geochemical oscillations in the Neoproterozoic.

Photo of Ed Boyle
Ed Boyle
Professor of Ocean Geochemistry; Director of WHOI-MIT Joint Program Home Phone: 617-253-2288 Interest Areas: chemical oceanography, biogeochemistry Website Website

Marine chemistry: distribution of trace elements in the ocean and their use as paleochemical tracers; response of the ocean to anthropogenic lead emissions; relation between dust, iron in the ocean, and marine biological activity.

Photo of Sallie (Penny) W. Chisholm
Sallie (Penny) W. Chisholm
Professor of Environmental Studies; Professor of Biology Home Phone: (617) 253-1771 Interest Areas: biological oceanography, microbial ecology Website Website

Microbial oceanography: the role of marine phytoplankton in the ocean’s “metabolism”; the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus as a model to study marine ecology from the genome level to the whole ocean.

Photo of Chryssostomos Chryssostomidis
Chryssostomos Chryssostomidis
Director, MIT Sea Grant, Doherty Professor of Ocean Science and Engineering Professor of Mechanical & Ocean Engineering Home Phone: 617 253-7131 Interest Areas: autonomous underwater vehicles Website Website

Development of technology and systems for advanced autonomous surface and underwater vehicles.

Photo of Kerry Emanuel
Kerry Emanuel
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Atmospheric Science Home Phone: (617) 253-2462 Interest Areas: atmospheric convection, hurricanes Website Website

Atmospheric convection; interaction of hurricanes with the ocean.

Photo of Raffaele Ferrari
Raffaele Ferrari
Breene M. Kerr Professor of Oceanography Home Phone: (617) 253-1291 Interest Areas: physical oceanography, paleoclimate, biological oceanography Website Website

Ocean circulation: dynamics of the ocean and climate, atmospheric and oceanic turbulence, air-sea interactions, the energetics of the ocean circulation, the impact of ocean physics on biology, and paleoclimate.

Photo of Glenn Flierl
Glenn Flierl
Professor of Oceanography Home Phone: (617) 253-4692 Interest Areas: physical oceanography, eddies Website Website

Oceanic eddies and their impacts upon the distribution of tracers and on the biology of the sea.

Photo of Mick Follows
Mick Follows
Associate Professor Home Phone: (617) 253-5939 Interest Areas: biogeochemistry, ocean circulation Website Website

Models of interactions of ocean circulation, biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems.

Photo of Philip M. Gschwend
Philip M. Gschwend
Ford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-1638 Interest Areas: environmental organic chemistry Website Website

Environmental organic chemistry: phase exchanges and transformation processes; the modeling of fates of organic pollutants; the roles of colloids and black carbons; and passive sampling for site evaluation.

Photo of Harry F. Hemond
Harry F. Hemond
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-1637 Interest Areas: biogeochemistry, renewable energy Website Website

Earth’s biochemical cycles and development of novel observational systems to study those cycles; methods to interact sustainably with the natural environment.

Photo of Franz S. Hover
Franz S. Hover
Finmeccanica Career Development Professor in Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-6762 Interest Areas: networking, engineering Website Website

Design methods for complex ocean systems; autonomous inspection of in-water ships; design of ocean networks comprising groups of communicating vehicles as well as fluid and power systems.

Photo of John Leonard
John Leonard
Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-0607 Interest Areas: navigation, robotics, mapping Website Website

Navigation and mapping for autonomous mobile robots, robotic localization and mapping applications below, on and above water in marine and river environments.

Photo of Pierre Lermusiaux
Pierre Lermusiaux
Associate Professor in Ocean Utilization Home Phone: (617) 324-5172 Interest Areas: modeling systems, ocean dynamics Website Website

Ocean modeling and data assimilation techniques to quantify regional ocean dynamics on multiple scales; new methods for multiscale modeling, uncertainty quantification, data assimilation and the guidance of autonomous vehicles.

Photo of Nicolas Makris
Nicolas Makris
Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering Home Phone: (617) 258-6104 Interest Areas: engineering, remote sensing Website Website

Ocean exploration, remote sensing of marine life and geophysical phenomena, census of marine life, ocean acoustics, and hurricane classification.

Photo of John Marshall
John Marshall
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography Home Phone: (617) 253-9615 Interest Areas: oceanography, climate dynamics Website Website

Climate and the general circulation of the atmosphere and oceans; development of mathematical and numerical models of key physical and biogeochemical processes, oceans and climate, and paleoclimate.

Photo of David Mindell
David Mindell
Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, and Head of DeepArch Group in Technology, Archaeology and the Deep Sea Home Phone: (617) 253-0221 Interest Areas: Website Website

Historian and electrical engineer, an expert on human/machine relationships in broad technical, social, and historical contexts.

Photo of Shuhei Ono
Shuhei Ono
Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences Home Phone: (617) 253-0474 Interest Areas: microbial oceanography, ecology Website Website

Interplay among atmosphere, rock, water and microbes; the photochemical sulfur isotope effect, early microbial evolution, deep biosphere, and seafloor hydrothermal deposits.

Photo of Alan Oppenheim
Alan Oppenheim
Ford Professor of Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253 2561 Interest Areas: digital signal processing Website Website

Research interests are in the general area of signal processing and its applications: coauthor of the widely used textbooks Discrete-Time Signal Processing and Signals and Systems.

Photo of Nicholas Patrikalakis
Nicholas Patrikalakis
Kawasaki Professor of Engineering Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-4555 Interest Areas: Robotics and Sensing Website Website

Robotics and Sensing, Dynamic Data-Driven Forecasting Systems, Computer-Aided Design, Visualization.

Photo of Thomas Peacock
Thomas Peacock
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Home Phone: (617) 258-0736 Interest Areas: fluid dynamics, stratified flows Website Website

Laboratory experiments to obtain insight into all manner of dynamical phenomena, from micro-scale diffusive processes to global-scale oceanic wave fields.

Photo of Martin Polz
Martin Polz
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-7128 Interest Areas: environmental microbiology, microbial ecology Website Website

Exploration of structure-function relationships in microbial communities using quantitative molecular approaches, genomics, physiology, and modeling.

Photo of Paola Rizzoli
Paola Rizzoli
Professor of Physical Oceanography Home Phone: (617) 253-2451 Interest Areas: general circulation, climate modeling Website Website

Climate; general ocean circulation and ecosystem models developed through mathematical numerical models.

Photo of Daniel Rothman
Daniel Rothman
Professor of Geophysics Home Phone: (617) 253-7861 Interest Areas: theoretical geophysics, biogeochemistry and paleobiology Website Website

Dynamical organization of the natural environment through investigation of the cooperative phenomena underlying common yet poorly understood observations. Work combines theory, field observations, and experiments to study problems including the carbon cycle and climate, the co-evolution of life and the environment, and the dynamics of fluids, rocks, and sand.

Photo of Daniela Rus
Daniela Rus
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Head of CSAIL Home Phone: (617) 258 7567 Interest Areas: environmental robotics Website Website

Distributed robotics, mobile computing, programmable matter and applications in environmental robotics.

Photo of Henrik Schmidt
Henrik Schmidt
Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-5727 Interest Areas: engineering, acoustics Website Website

Arctic and shallow water acoustics; scattering and reverberation due to sea surface and ice roughness; determination of seismic-acoustic propagation and reverberation in ocean environments; and 3-D acoustics in very shallow water.

Photo of Paul Sclavounos
Paul Sclavounos
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture Home Phone: (617) 253-4364 Interest Areas: Maritime, offshore and energy engineering applications Website Website

Modeling of free surface flows past conventional and high-speed vessels and the estimation of their resistance and seakeeping in deep and shallow waters. Coupling of hydrodynamic simulations with optimal control theory for the minimization of the motions and the fuel efficient navigation of vessels.

Photo of Alexander Slocum
Alexander Slocum
Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-0012 Interest Areas: MEMS, precision engineering, machine and product design Website Website

Design and manufacture of innovative medical devices, precision machines and components, and energy systems, including offshore, floating wind turbines.

Photo of Roman Stocker
Roman Stocker
Associate Professor Home Phone: (617) 253-3726 Interest Areas: physical ecology, environmental microfluidics Website Website

Physical ecology of microorganisms; microscale transport phenomena; microfluidic experiments to understand how physical forces and chemical signals shape the behavior of marine microorganisms.

Photo of Roger Summons
Roger Summons
Professor of Geobiology Home Phone: (617) 452-2791 Interest Areas: geobiology, biogeochemistry Website Website

Biogeochemistry and geobiology: lipid chemistry of geologically significant microbes and microbial ecosystems; organic and isotopic indicators of climate change; evolution and mass extinction; biomarkers in sediments and petroleum; and biogeochemical fossils.

Photo of Alexandra H. Techet
Alexandra H. Techet
Associate Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering Home Phone: (617) 452-2266 Interest Areas: hydrodynamics, engineering Website Website

Solving hydrodynamics problems for use by the ocean science and engineering communities through rigorous experimental investigation and imaging.

Photo of Janelle R. Thompson
Janelle R. Thompson
Assistant Professor in Ocean Utilization Home Phone: (617) 324.5268 Interest Areas: microbial ecology, microbial oceanography Website Website

Microbial oceanography: study of the relationship between the structure of microbial communities and their function using molecular biology, genomics, and genetics.

Photo of Michael S. Triantafyllou
Michael S. Triantafyllou
William I. Koch Professor of Marine Technology; Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering; Associate Head for Ocean Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-4335 Interest Areas: fluid dynamics, biometrics Website Website

Physics of flow-sensing in fish and marine mammals; achieving super-maneuverability in ocean vehicles through flow feedback control; development of biometric robots to study the agility of fish and cetaceans.

Photo of J. Kim Vandiver
J. Kim Vandiver
Dean for Undergraduate Research, Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering Home Phone: (617) 253-4366 Interest Areas: structural dynamics, ship vibration, and downhole drillstring dynamics Website Website

Dynamics of offshore structures and flow-induced vibration.

Photo of Tomasz Wierzbicki
Tomasz Wierzbicki
Professor of Applied Mechanics Home Phone: (617) 253-2104 Interest Areas: structural crashworthiness and failure Website Website

Structural mechanics of large complex structures, impact loads and weapon effects on structures, and crashworthiness.

Photo of Brian Williams
Brian Williams
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Home Phone: (617) 253-1678 Interest Areas: model-based programming, robotics Website Website

Model-based programming and cooperative space, air, land and undersea vehicles, on Earth and on other planets

Photo of Carl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography Home Phone: (617) 253-5937 Interest Areas: ocean circulation, climate Website Website

Understanding ocean circulation and its implications for climate and paleoclimate by combining global general circulation models and the recently available global data sets.

Photo of Dick K.P. Yue
Dick K.P. Yue
Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering; Director of International Programs Home Phone: (617) 253-6823 Interest Areas: fluid mechanics, ocean engineering Website Website

Marine fluid mechanics and ocean engineering: problems ranging from coastal and offshore development to understanding the role of oceans in global warming.