James L. Hench
Assistant Professor (primary appt: Nicholas School of the Environment)
I am a physical oceanographer with research interests in shallow-water circulation characterized by unsteadiness, strong advective accelerations, and frictional boundary layers that occupy much or all of the water column. I am also interested in the effects of stratification on shallow flows. Currently I am working on several projects including: wave-driven circulation and exchange in coral reef, lagoon, and pass systems; understanding the effects of rough bottoms such as corals on circulation and scalar mixing; and the impact of stratification on circulation and tidal exchange in a freshwater tidal river.
I also have a strong interest in interdisciplinary problems that have a significant physical component such as: larval fish transport, small-scale shear effects on phytoplankton, selective tidal-stream transport, sponge excurrents, and the effects of wave forcing on corallivory.
Contact Information:
- Office Location: BRL 309, Duke Marine Lab, Beaufort, NC
- Office Phone: (650) 759-6639
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Email Address:
- Web Pages:
Education:
| PhD | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | |
| MS | Stanford University | |
| BS | North Carolina State University |
Research Interests:
Environmental fluid mechanics, shallow-water physical oceanography, physical-biological interactions in marine environments, and marine technology
Specialties:
oceanography
estuarine ecosystems
marine science
Awards, Honors, and Distinctions:
- Donald W. Pritchard Award for Best Physical Oceanography Paper during past two years in “Estuaries and Coasts” (with SG Monismith, DA Fong, NJ Nidzieko, WE Fleenor, LD Doyle, and SG Schladow), awarded by Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation, 2011.
Representative Publications: (More Publications)
- Hench, J. L., and J.H. Rosman, Observations of spatial flow patterns at the coral colony scale on a shallow reef flat, Journal of Geophysical Research (Oceans), 118, doi:10.1029/2012JC008387, vol 118 (2013).
- Monismith, S. G., L. M. Herdman, S. H. Ahmerkamp, and J. L. Hench, Wave transformation and wave-driven flow across a steep coral reef, Journal of Physical Oceanography, 34, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0164 (2013).
- Wong, S. H. C., A. E. Santoro, N. J. Nidzieko, J. L. Hench, and A. B. Boehm, Coupled physical, chemical, and microbiological measurements suggest a connection between internal waves and surfzone water quality in the Southern California Bight, Continental Shelf Research, vol 34 (2012), pp. 64-78.
- Collin, A., and J. L. Hench, Towards deeper measurements of tropical reefscape structure using the WorldView-2 spaceborne sensor, Remote Sensing, vol 4 no. 5 (2012), pp. 1425-1447.
- Collin, A., J. L. Hench, and S. Planes, A novel spaceborne proxy for mapping coral cover, Proc. 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (2012), pp. 5A-1.