CEEM Seminar Series | Ali Farhadzadeh | Stony Brook University
Wave Forces and Erosion Dynamics: Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Coastal Flood Interactions with Built and Natural Environments
Coastal environments are highly vulnerable to natural hazards like storm surges, high-energy waves, and tidal currents, which drive inundation and accelerate erosion, posing significant risks to natural and built systems alike. As climate change intensifies these hazards, understanding storm impacts on coastal infrastructure becomes essential to strengthening resilience and informing sustainable management strategies. This seminar delves into a range of research topics tackling complex challenges in coastal engineering, focusing on wave-driven hydrodynamics, impact forces on near coast structures, and the erosion of coastal bluffs. By integrating wave flume experiments with high-fidelity numerical simulations, we investigate the dynamics of wave and current interactions within clustered structures and examine the geomechanical processes driving coastal bluff erosion and recession. Our findings emphasize the critical role of layout configuration in shaping local hydrodynamics and structural loading variations in clustered settings. Furthermore, the interplay between wave dynamics and the strength of bluff-forming materials was found to control bluff erosion and recession.
Ali Farhadzadeh
Dr. Farhadzadeh is an Associate Professor at Stony Brook University (SBU) and the Principal Investigator of the Coastal and Hydraulic Engineering Research Lab (CHERL). He earned his Ph.D. in Coastal and Ocean Engineering from the University of Delaware in 2011. Following his doctorate, Dr. Farhadzadeh worked in industry, contributing to significant coastal flood modeling projects, including FEMA’s Great Lakes Coastal Flood Study and post-Fukushima coastal flooding hazard reevaluation for U.S. nuclear power plants. In 2014, he joined SBU as an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Civil Engineering and the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS). His research focuses on nearshore hydrodynamics, sediment transport, wave-structure interactions, and coastal geotechnics, with support from agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Farhadzadeh is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) and a Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM).