Courtney K. Harris
Professor; Chair, Coastal & Ocean Processes
Email:
[[ckharris]]
Phone:
(804) 684-7194
Interests:
3-D modeling to improve understanding of sediment transport in continental shelves and estuarine environments.
Office:
Andrews Hall 227
Section:
Coastal & Ocean Processes
Links:
{{http://www.vims.edu/research/units/labgroups/sediment_transport_modeling/index.php, Website}}, {{https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8nH8ZtgAAAAJ&hl=en, Google Scholar}}
Education
- B.S., University of Virginia
- M.S., University of California, Berkeley
- M.S., Ph.D., University of Virginia
About
My research has been directed at improving our ability to quantify and predict sediment transport on continental shelves over a variety of temporal and spatial scales. I have been involved in interdisciplinary projects that considered interactions between shelf sediment transport and small scale stratigraphy, sediment budgets, geochemistry, coastal oceanography, and climatology. Involvement in large experiments has involved collaboration with field oceanographers and geologists that has benefited my research focus of numerically modeling suspended sediment transport on shelves.
Current research projects include (1) developing and using numerical models for the northern Gulf of Mexico to quantify sediment processes and their interactions with biogeochemistry; (2) identifying oceanographic transport processes that impact sedimentation offshore of the Ayeyarwady Delta, Myanmar; and (3) exploring the use of coupled numerical models to address societally relevant issues within environments of the Gulf of Mexico and mid-Atlantic bight.
My collaborative experiences have convinced me that we can make the best strides by building models and tools that are available to the research community as a whole. I am therefore active in a group of oceanographers and geologists who are working to develop a community sediment transport model by developing and testing numerical models that account for sediment transport and oceanographic circulation.