Dr Charlie Thompson BSc, PhD

Research Fellow

Dr Charlie Thompson is a Research Fellow in Sediment Dynamics within Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton at the University of Southampton.

Her main research interests focus on experimental and processes based sediment dynamics. These include:
• Measuring and predicting bed stability, sediment resuspension processes and dynamics in situ and in the laboratory.
• Measurements of fluid and solid-transmitted stresses during sediment transport, with a focus on how mobile sediments erode the seabed, archaeological artifacts and skeletal remains.
• Understanding the complex feedbacks between boundary layer dynamics, roughness and turbulence.

Her research has specialized in the use and development of in situ, laboratory and ship-board annular flumes to investigate sediment transport and erosion processes. This has led to a wide range of multidisciplinary research, including collaborations with biogeochemists, biologists, geologists, archaeologists and forensic anthropologists, working together to answer joint research questions in coastal and marine settings.

Charlie is currently Co-Investigator on two NERC funded research projects looking at biogeochemical cycling in coastal and shelf sea environments: these form part of the Macronutrient Cycling project (NE/J012238/1), where she is researching how storm driven resuspension events may alter nutrient fluxes into or out of the seabed; and Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry (NE/K001906/1) which in part aims to answer questions about under what circumstances the seabed may be a source or sink for nutrients.

Charlie completed her PhD in Sediment Dynamics at the University of Southampton in 2003, and before that a BSc in Marine Science. She currently teaches on the MSc Engineering in the Coastal Environment degree programme, in particular sediment dynamics and coastal morphodynamics.