It’s been a big semester for the JETlab! We are excited to report a newly-minted Masters of Science for James Holyoke, who wrote a fantastic thesis covering two important topics – design of portable median barriers for flood zones, and tracking edge features in buoyant plumes to develop remote sensing techniques. James will be sorely missed at UT, but we are glad to have had two years of work together in Austin! Congrats, James!
We also have three Ph.D. candidates in the group, with Po-Chen passing his Quals last semester and successfully applying to Candidacy this spring!
What else happened this semester? Arefe and Blair virtually attended the Ocean Sciences Meeting that would have been held in Hawaii if we weren’t still in the midst of a global pandemic. Arefe gave an excellent talk on stratified mixing in the Nearshore Processes session, and Blair presented Po-Chen’s project on sediment transport. Meanwhile, Po-Chen and Blair wrapped up their SERDP project with lots of glorious freeze-coring of colored sands and some sneaky PIV maneuvers, which we’re still going to keep under wrap until we work out some bugs! But it was a fun semester with lots of lab experiments and tons of learning. Everyone is in the midst of writing papers and running tests, and blossoming into talented, capable, and confident scientists. We also enjoyed a number of happy hours and dinners to stay sane along the way 🙂
And finally, we’ve made progress in renovating our 1972 flume, after MANY years of frustration and preparations. We aren’t done yet, but stay tuned to Blair’s twitter for updates – #JETlab and #1972flume will show you all you need to know.
Blair is presently enjoying the start of summer living in New Orleans and working at the Naval Research Lab at Stennis as an ONR faculty fellow. She (I … I never know whether to write this in first person or third!) was thrilled to receive the CAEE department teaching award this Spring semester, and is determined to go into year 5 at UT with lots of hope for wonderful things to continue.