GFD Lecture Series
WHOI Physical Oceanography Department weekly lectures:
https://www.whoi.edu/what-we-do/understand/departments-centers-labs/po/po-events/
2026 Lecture Schedule
Lectures/Seminars are held in Walsh Cottage in Woods Hole Village
PRINCIPAL LECTURERS
Jennifer MacKinnon, University of California San Diego
Bruce Sutherland, University of Alberta
PRINCIPAL LECTURES
WEEK ONE
Monday, June 22
10:00 a.m. Bruce Sutherland
Fundamentals 1: Equations, stratification and interfacial internal waves with no rotation
2:00 p.m. Jennifer MacKinnon
Fundamentals 2: Waves in uniform stratiification, near inertial waves, and relevance to ocean
Tuesday, June 23
10:00 a.m. Jennifer MacKinnon
Oceanic IGW 1: Historical beginnings, abyssal recipes, energy budgets and observed spectra
2:00 p.m. Bruce Sutherland
Oceanic IGW 2: Dealing with nonuniform stratification - introduction to WKB theory
Wednesday, June 24
10:00 a.m. Bruce Sutherland
IGW Generation 1: Oscillating cylinder, flow over hills, lee waves and other non-rotating phenomena
2:00 p.m. Jennifer MacKinnon
IGW Generation 2: Generation near inertial frequencies, ocean observations
Thursday, June 25
10:00 a.m. Bruce Sutherland
Transport by IGW 1: Stokes drift, Eulerian and Lagrangian flows, pseudomomentum
2:00 p.m. Jennifer MacKinnon
Transport by IGW 2: ray tracing with varying Coriolis, depth, currents, and wave action
Friday, June 26
10:00 a.m. Bruce Sutherland
Energy Cascade Mechanisms 1: Overturning, nonlinear wave-wave interactions, interactions with bathymetry
WEEK TWO
Monday, June 29
10:00 a.m. Jennifer MacKinnon
Energy Cascade Mechanisms 2: More wave-wave interactions, the GM continuum, wave-eddy interactions
2:00 p.m. Bruce Sutherland
Fast Time-Scale Phenomena 1: Stratified turbulence, stirring and mixing, momentum deposition
Tuesday, June 30
10:00 a.m. Jennifer MacKinnon
Fast Time-Scale Phenomena 2: Equatorial waves, turbulence generation and absorption
SEMINARS
**seminars start at 11:00 A.M.*
Wednesday, July 1
A tale of two potential vorticities: The drivers of zonal flows in giant planets
Loren Matilsky, University of California Santa Cruz
Thursday, July 2
11:00 a.m.
Geostrophic turbulent convection: Scalings and large scale patterns
Xiaojue Zhu, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
2:00 p.m.
Emergent large-scale dynamics in stably and unstably stratified flows
Philipp Vieweg, University of Münster
Friday, July 3
HOLIDAY
WEEK THREE
Monday, July 6
Wave turbulence insights from reduced mathematical models
Jim Thomas,Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Tuesday, July 7
Exact coherent structures and stability of shear double-diffusive convection
Chang Liu, University of Connecticut
Wednesday, July 8
Planar intrusions from a constant source: In search of a model
Anja Slim, Monash University
Thursday, July 9
Untangling waves and mean flows using Lagrangian filtering
Lois Baker, University of Edinburgh
Friday, July 10 (Zoom not available)
Anomalous wave statistics induced by abrupt depth changes
Nick Moore, Colgate University
WEEK FOUR
Monday, July 13
Horizontal diffusivities over a slope: monster eddies, layer asymmetries and other oddities
Joe LaCasce, University of Oslo
Tuesday, July 14
Fast QG limit of the LANS-alpha model and a review of the Lagrangian Averaged Navier-Stokes and Leray models in an IPCC class ocean model
Beth Wingate, University of Exeter
Wednesday, July 15
Double-diffusive layers in giant planets
Pascale Garaud, University of California, Santa Cruz
Thursday, July 16
The impact of boundary current hydrography on deep mixed-layer properties in the Labrador Sea
Renske Gelderloos, Delft University of Technology
Friday, July 17
Jets and superrotation in deep and shallow planetary atmospheres
Geoff Vallis, University of Exeter
WEEK FIVE
Monday, July 20
How does intermittency affect the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO)?
Elizabeth Hicks, Northwestern University
5:00 P.M. SEARS PUBLIC LECTURE - REDFIELD AUDITORIUM
If it's Tuesday, it must be Moorea: Observations of hydrodynamic processes that matter to reef ecology
Stephen Monismith, Stanford University
Tuesday, July 21
Interactions between Vertical and Horizontal Convection: From Nuclear Safety to Cyclone Eyes
Michael Le Bars, IRPHE
Wednesday, July 22
Scale-dependent representations of wave effects on mean flow and their consequences for instability
Lulabel Ruiz Seitz, Brown University
Thursday, July 23
Flows through living roughness
Stephen Monismith, Stanford University
Friday, July 24
From depth to space — following the path of Enceladus geysers
Wanying Kang, MIT
WEEK SIX
Monday, July 27
Impacts of a flexible canopy on the motion of vegetation seeds
Theresa Oehmke, University of New Hampshire
Tuesday, July 28
Exact coherent states in strongly nonlinear convection: A new approach to asymptotic transport
Baole Wen, New York Institute of Technology
Wednesday, July 29
Modeling large-scale circulations driven by thermal convection
Mac Huang, New York University, Shanghai
Thursday, July 30
11:00 a.m.
Surface gravity waves catalyze turbulent mean flow jets
Nick Pizzo, University of Rhode Island
2:00 p.m.
Convection, continents, and oceans
Jack Whitehead, WHOI
Friday, July 31 (Zoom not available)
Perturbations of a magic carpet
Andrew Lawrie, University of Bristol
WEEK SEVEN
NO SEMINARS
WEEK EIGHT
FELLOWS' PRESENTATIONS
TBD