Sand Solutions

Hello! I am Jack Taylor, a PHD student in Coastal and Ocean Engineering at Oregon State, working in the Coast Lab under Dr. Benjamin Tsai. I am interested in any and all surf zone and coastal sediment processes. My current research primarily revolves around wave-dune interaction, specifically coupling wave breaking processes with geotechnical models to better understand dune slumping. I am a big believer and user of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) as a tool for coastal research. I currently use OPENFOAM in my research to model wave-dune interaction, and I hope to continue using it throughout my career as a researcher and coastal engineer. With rapid beach loss threatening vast swaths of our coastline, it has never been more critical to better understand these processes and implement science-based solutions to our sand problems.

In addition to my wave-dune interaction research, I am passionate about engineering solutions to combat beach loss. Artificial reefs are of special interest to me, and I believe that they may be a powerful tool to simultaneously protect coastal infrastructure and access while also enhancing recreation opportunities. CFD modeling of wave breaking under various sea states and reef designs is potentially a powerful tool in the arsenal of reef developers, helping limit time-consuming and expensive small-scale testing.

During my undergraduate career, I worked under Dr. James Guilinger for a project entailing remote sensing Coastal Change in Monterey Bay, California. The project used photogrammetry data to construct large-scale replications of the bay's dunes, allowing for high-precision volume differencing and erosion estimates over large (kilometer-plus) length scales. While less used in my current research, my background in remote sensing has proven to be invaluable for spatially contextualizing small scale proceses. 

I spend my free time in the same way I spend my work - thinking about the ocean. I have spent nearly two decades exploring the ocean via boats, surfboards, snorkels, canoes, kayaks, and whatever can get me on the water. Prior to graduate school, I spent time pursuing Big Wave surfing, and have been lucky enough to be featured in newspapers and movies for some of my rides at Mavericks (CA). I am a strong believer that coastal processes are best understood not only through a textbook (although Federson's Nearshore Hydrodynamics is beautiful), but by spending time in both the classroom and the surf zone.