Bio Alan Blumberg

Alan F. Blumberg Autobiographical Sketch January 27, 2013 The ocean has always fascinated me. Growing up in the Panama Canal Zone, I spent my youth in the ocean, swimming, diving, boating and fishing or on the beach collecting shells and chasing hermit crabs. I often swam in the Atlantic and Pacific on the same morning feeling, first hand, experiencing 20’ tidal surges and tasting differences in salinity between the two oceans. The swirling currents, which often complicated my attempts to grab lobsters, piqued my interest in physics and fluid mechanics. I have had the good fortune to turn my boyhood fascination of the ocean into a vocation. The main focus of my work is understanding and predicting the physical dynamics of estuarine and coastal ocean circulation and the creation of ocean observing and forecasting systems which are used for environmental studies, surface vessel operations, and for securing the future safety and sustainability of urban coastal regions. My research makes use of numerical models, laboratory experiments and field measurements. Long-term research interests address new perspectives on the evolution of urban-environment interactions to create sustainable and resilient 21st century coastal city regions. I was formally trained in the study of ocean physics at The Johns Hopkins University and later at Princeton University. In graduate school I enjoyed outstanding mentorship. My Ph.D. advisor, Donald W. Pritchard, the leading estuarine physicist of his day, taught me the physics of estuarine circulation, a discipline he created almost single handedly. Another key mentor was Francis P. Bretherton, a distinguished theoretical meteorologist who taught me numerical modeling and the mathematics of ocean physics. Together Pritchard and Bretherton guided me in developing the first real model of estuarine circulation and helped me apply it to the Potomac River Estuary for my Ph.D. thesis. I was also fortunate in those early days to work with Alan J. Elliott, a post-doctoral researcher who showed me how to design an observational program and who sent me out on cruises to make measurements in the Potomac River and on Chesapeake Bay. It was through the influence of Bretherton that I spent two summers at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton under the supervision of Kirk Bryan – the pioneer of ocean modeling. After completing my Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins, I took a post-doctoral position at Princeton University where I began a lifelong partnership with George Mellor, a giant in the field of turbulence and ocean modeling. Applying the numerical techniques that I had learned at Johns Hopkins, we coded up what was referred to as the “Blumberg-Mellor Model,” the first fully three-dimensional model of coastal ocean circulation. In spite of early criticism, this so- called Princeton Ocean Model (POM) became the model of choice for the past twenty-five years. During his introduction of me at a National Research Council retreat on the future of the coastal zone, Larry Smarr then the Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications told the audience, “you can always tell the pioneers, they are the ones with arrows in their backs.” 1 My career can be divided into three main phases. From 1976-1985, my Princeton phase, I wrote papers with George Mellor that described the physics of the POM model and presented the details of the numerical scheme. Several other papers applied the model to a range of coastal problems. The second phase (1985 to 2002) began when I moved out of academia and entered the commercial world with HydroQual, Inc. I continued to develop the POM model with support from the Office of Naval Research and other national agencies. The POM model became widely accepted by the ocean modeling community aided by the creation of the POM web site and user community workshops. At HydroQual I was Principal Scientist and Executive Vice President, responsible for the Hydrodynamic and Sediment Transport Group solving problems associated with the marine environment. During the HydroQual years, I continued publishing in peer- reviewed journals, often lecturing at conferences and various universities and participating on the editorial boards of influential journals. I continued to publish my work and became active with the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Estuarine Research Federation. The third phase of my career started in the fall of 2002 when I joined Stevens. Over the years several universities looking to bring successful ocean scientists from industry to their campus had approached me. I always said no thanks until Stevens came into the picture. When my friends and colleagues asked me why I choose Stevens my answer was simple. Stevens gave me the best chance of accomplishing the work that I wanted to do. I would have truly gifted colleagues and very bright students. The icing on the cake was my colleague Michael Bruno’s vision of a Center for Maritime Systems at the Davidson laboratory. I have served first as the Deputy Director and more recently as Director of the Davidson Laboratory. The Laboratory employs approximately 35 people and collaborates with faculty members from several different departments. I was also fortunate to serve as the Department Director for Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering for two years, from 2005 to 2006. When I called my old friends to tell them of that appointment they asked, “When will your sentence be over”? I accepted the challenge because I wanted to play an active role in shaping the future of the department. Other academic leadership roles came quickly to me at Stevens. I served beginning in 2008 for two years as the Chair of the Faculty Council, the elected faculty body responsible for faculty governance. That was a tumultuous period coinciding with the controversial departure of the past Institute president. I presently serve as Chair of the Institute Promotion and Tenure Committee. My interest in coastal megacities and their interaction with the marine environment begin in 2011 with my sabbatical at the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris and with scientists at the University of Bologna in Bologna, Italy. I collaborated with meteorologists and coastal oceanographers involved in the study of climate change impacts. Today my group focuses on the impacts from sea level rise and climate change on the sustainability of urban coastal environments. I was a contributor to the U.S. Urban Climate Assessment report, which was submitted as a technical report to the U.S. National Climate Assessment. I have worked in every major estuary in the United States and many coastal environments around the world including the North West Approaches, and the coastal waters offshore of Norway and around the island of Oahu. I have has been involved with several major studies regarding flooding events assessments in the New York City area as a result of my analysis of the 2 destruction from Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy. I am recognized as one of the pioneer and leading experts in modern estuarine and coastal ocean prediction and have contributed significantly to the creation of integrated modeling and observing systems. The forecast capabilities are based on POM and its derivative, shallow water version, ECOMSED. Approximately 3000 groups throughout the world now adopt this model. There are more than 1500 papers published using POM as the bases for the study. Presently, I lead the New York Harbor Observation and Prediction System (NYHOPS), which facilitates an assessment of ocean, weather, and environmental conditions throughout the New York Harbor region. I am at the forefront of hydrodynamic model development and application and have written over 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings. I served as a member of the IOOS Modeling and Analysis Steering Team (MAST) whose goal is to identify the scientific and technological opportunities and R&D needed to advance real-time global and coastal ocean modeling. I have served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board evaluating the causes, location, magnitude and duration of the hypoxic zone in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. I was appointed in 2003 to the Ocean Modeling Review Panel that was commissioned by the NOAA Science Advisory Board to review the prediction capacity of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction. And I serve periodically as a member of the California Bay/Delta Authority’s Interagency Ecological Program Science Advisory Group. I am the recipient of the 2001 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Karl Emil Hilgard Hydraulic Prize and the 2007 Denny Medal from the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology. In 2006 I was elected a Fellow of the ASCE. I served as a member of the organizing committee of ASCE’s prestigious biannual Estuarine and Coastal Modeling Conference and was an associate editor of their leading journal, the Journal of Hydraulic Engineering. I am also active with the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) as past Associate Editor of Estuaries and through frequent presentations at CERF conferences. I delivered the opening presentation at the CERF 2003 Conference. My work on hurricane intensity reduction has resulted in a patent and the concept was featured in a National Geographic Special in 2008 and a Weather Channel special in 2013. I am often called upon by the media to comment on current science related events and have been featured in The New York Times, The Record, USAToday, on WCBS News Radio and television stations The Weather Channel, CNBC, WCBS, CN8 and NJN. I always tell the reporters to make sure to interview my colleagues and students for they have been the key to getting everything right. 3 .

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