Katie Smith is a Ph.D. candidate in physical oceanography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She received her B.S.E. in civil and environmental engineering from Princeton University in 2007. She then worked at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory, researching a variety of topics including the interplay between oysters, seagrass, and water clarity in Chesapeake Bay, local climate change projections, and estimating estuarine species’ changing habitat volume with hydrodynamic and biogeochemical models.
Katie moved to Hawaii in 2009 to study internal waves and their effects on variability in nearshore waters. Internal waves have the potential to transport plankton as well as affect temperature, salinity, nutrient concentrations, and pH in nearshore ecosystems including coral reefs. Her dissertation focuses on internal tides in nearshore Oahu, and she is excited for the opportunity to participate in research aboard Falkor on an internal hydraulic jump offshore of Oahu’s Kaena Point.
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