Morgane Houssais, PhD

Currently Research Scientist in the Physics department at Clark University, I am generally interested in the Physics of material and fluids involved in landscape dynamics. In particular I study phenomena driving sediment transport at the grain scale, and how they relate to systems dynamics at the macro-scale, such as: the equilibrium shape and grain sizes organization of river channel, the self-organization of river and sub-glacial stream channels, profiles and deformation rates of soil, from creep to landsliding.
I have also been visiting the Mechanical Engineering department of UC Santa Barbara, collaborating with Eckart Meiburg and Alban Sauret on the settling dynamics of natural aggregates.

I principally conduct my research by setting up physical experiments of sediment transport dynamics , where I obtain and analyze grain scale observations.

Recently, as the Levich Institute fellow (CCNY), my research has been tackling the problem of soil mechanics, and in particular investigating the influence of interstitial fluid flow on soil creep (in collaboration with Charles Maldarelli and Jeffrey Morris).

I started to do experiments during my PhD program at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), under the supervision of Eric Lajeunesse. My main results showed that it is possible to simply model bimodal sediment transport by measuring correctly the surface fraction of each size. As postdoctoral researcher at University of Pennsylvania (department of Earth and Environmental Science) - under the supervision of Douglas Jerolmack and Douglas Durian and in close collaboration with Carlos Ortiz (U. of Pennsylvania, Department of Physics and Astronomy) - I have developed a unique experiment to visualize bed load sediment transport in 3D. Thus far our results have allowed us to established new links between fundamental questions about river sediment transport and recent discoveries in granular systems rheology.

I have also been involved in fieldwork projects in India to characterize the channels dynamics of the Kosi river system, one of the most dynamics river in the world, close to the Himalayas, in collaboration with Gaurav Kumar (IISR Bhopal), Francois Métivier (IPGP) and Rajiv Sinha (IIT Kanpur).