Alumni News

New Faculty Member Wins ODU Summer Research Fellowship to Study Sediment Suspension

Thursday, March 07, 2013

As he grew up in Zhejiang Province in his native China, severe storms coming ashore from the Pacific Ocean were a fact of life for Gangfeng Ma.

"We called them typhoons; they call them hurricanes here. I remember seeing damage from them in Zhejiang Province my whole life," he said.

That experience led Ma to focus his engineering studies on the effect such storms can have on coastal areas. And ultimately, it has led him to Old Dominion University's Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative (CCSLRI). Hired in 2012 as an assistant professor in ODU's Batten College of Engineering and Technology, Ma is applying his research skills in coastal engineering to look at the effect such storms, and rising sea levels, have on sediment.

"Our beaches are assets. Every year, the country spends millions of dollars to prevent erosion of our beaches," Ma said. "If we can understand more about sediment processes, we can better prioritize our efforts."

Ma has been awarded a $7,000 summer research fellowship from Old Dominion University's Office of Research to study the mechanism of sediment suspension on the coast. He is also co-principal investigator on two collaborative research grant proposals submitted in February to the National Science Foundation, one a $1.4 million proposal submitted with former colleagues at the University of Florida, to better understand how waves and tides impact the beach groundwater flow and sediment transport in the beaches.

For full story visit: http://odu.edu/news/2013/3/sea_level_rise_conso

---