Coral-reef dynamics – S2T Unit

The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST; see www.oist.jp) is a dynamic new graduate university of science and technology in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The university is located on 85 hectares of protected forestland overlooking beautiful shoreline and coral reefs. The campus is striking architecturally, and the facilities are outstanding (OIST campus video tour). There are no academic departments, which facilitates multidisciplinary research. Outstanding resources and equipment are provided and managed to encourage easy access and collaboration. English is the official language of the University, and the university research community is fully international, with more than 50 countries represented. OIST is rapidly gaining recognition in the worldwide academic community as a model for excellence in education and research.

Position summary

The Shocks, Solitons & Turbulence (S2T) Unit is looking for a postdoctoral scholar to study the dynamics of coral reefs using mathematical, computational and observational tools. We are developing models to capture transport phenomena (e.g. nutriments, spawning) associated with atmosphere-ocean energy exchanges (e.g. reef-induced breaking waves, shear-induced currents and tidal flows) and its coupling with coral growth/death (e.g. reaction-advection-diffusion equations). These models are used to capture the high-frequency content of reef dynamics (e.g. down to tide cycles) which then feed long-term dynamical models (e.g. on millennial time scales) from which the successful candidate will extract reef-front propagation properties that can be compared with actual satellite data. The model will then be exploited to explore long-term reef-front evolutions under different climate and environmental scenarios as well as to comment on the sensitivity and controllability of the reef-front structure. The successful candidate will benefit from broad expertise on coral reefs available from the Marine Science units at OIST and a unique view on actual reefs from the office to contemplate reality daily. The work is theoretical in nature, and we are looking for talented applied mathematicians. However, the credibility of the mathematical model relies on measurements and knowledge from other research units and unit members. For this reason, excellent team spirit is required.