Brief Biography

I grew up in the greater Los Angeles, CA area. I received a BS in Civil Engineering from California State Polytechnic University (Pomona, CA) in 1986 and an MS in Civil Engineering from the University of California (Berkeley, CA) in 1987. I worked for two years at the Coastal Engineering Research Center (now the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory), U.S. Army Waterways Experiment Station (now the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center) in Vicksburg, MS, specializing in numerical model development and application of these models to Corps of Engineers projects. In 1989 I entered a doctoral program at the University of Delaware (Newark, DE), working on nonlinear frequency domain wave modeling with Dr. James Kirby. I graduated with a PhD in Civil Engineering in 1994, and then began a twelve year career with the US Naval Research Laboratory, beginning with a one year postdoctoral fellowship with the Remote Sensing Division in Washington DC and then moving to an eleven year tenure at NRL’s Oceanography Division at Stennis Space Center, MS. My work with the Navy involved developing ocean wave and nearshore hydrodynamic models for Navy forecasting systems. It required the establishment of a nearshore wave and hydrodynamics modeling group at the lab, and I was fortunate enough to have made some excellent hires. One noteworthy achievement of our group was the development and implementation of a significant numerical upgrade in the SWAN wave model; this numerical scheme is now the default scheme in the model, and you can find the accompanying article here. In the wake of a three-foot surge in my home (a total of 24 feet from mean sea level) from Hurricane Katrina, I decided to move to academia, starting in 2006 as an Assistant Professor with the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University. I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2012 and then to Professor in 2018. I have served in various roles within the department, most recently as Division Head for the Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal Engineering Division. My professional service includes a stint as Associate Editor (2011-present) and Chief Editor (2019-2022) for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering. I am also a member of the inaugural Coastal Advisory Board for the NSF-funded Structural Extreme Event Reconnaissance (StEER) program, which serves to obtain perishable data in the wake of natural hazards. Recent deployments include Marsh Harbour / Freeport in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian (2019) and Ft. Myers Beach / Sanibel Island / Ft. Myers Shores after Hurricane Ian (2022). I am also a former chair of the Fluid Dynamics Committee of the Engineering Mechanics Institute of ASCE.

I’ve been married to Janet Dudding since 1990, and we live in Bryan with three dogs and two cats. In my spare time I play guitar in two faculty rock bands (Professorz and Big Dog) and yell at the Dodgers whenever I manage to watch a game.