Professional Background:

Johanna completed undergraduate degrees in Physics and Environmental Engineering at the University of Western Australia then moved to the US to pursue graduate studies in Environmental Fluid Mechanics at Stanford University. She joined IMS in 2009. Her research is on small-scale, shallow water physical oceanography. She is particularly interested in the fluid mechanics relevant to biological systems such as coral and sponge reefs, oyster beds, kelp forests and seagrass meadows. As many organisms live on or near the seafloor, much of her work focuses on boundary layer dynamics, including techniques for measuring turbulence in wavy coastal environments. As flow over reefs is spatially heterogeneous, she is interested in modeling the effect of small scale spatial variablity on larger scale flows.