Research group

Coastal Communities

View of Blackpool Tower, beach and coastal defences on a sunny day.

Coastal Communities SIG focuses on bringing together researchers and non-academic stakeholders to tackle challenges facing coastal communities. 

About

We are an interdisciplinary group of researchers interested in tackling real-world challenges in coastal communities. We aim to improve understanding and capacity to adapt to these challenges by bringing together those researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders who are affected, interested and/or involved in coastal communities. Through creating a forum for discussion, sharing methods and best practice, and doing research together, we can improve understanding and management of the challenges that coastal communities face, ranging from the health impacts of air pollution to social effects of climate change-driven coastal change.  

On an annual basis, the Coastal Communities SIG will host three formal meetings to:

  • Bring together researchers from across all faculties and institutes at the University of Southampton to discuss coastal communities research and identify opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. This will support the sustainability of existing working relationships, create space to build new partnerships, and facilitate interdisciplinary coastal communities bid development.
  • Invite University of Southampton researchers and external stakeholders to participate in a methods/best practice workshop, focusing on a cross-cutting approach. This will provide opportunity for researchers and other stakeholders to meet and upskill in methods/best practice they may not have encountered within their own discipline or working practice.
  • Hold a lunchtime forum with academic, policy and practitioners invited both as guest speakers and participants to learn from and network with each other. This will enable researchers and other stakeholders to share leading-edge research and practice and facilitate new collaborative partners for future research.

The Coastal Communities SIG invites those from within and outside of the University of Southampton to join the group. We welcome new ideas for events, trainings, speakers.

To find out more about the Digital Oceans Special Interest Group and what we do, get in touch with group champion Sien Van Der Plank.

Join the SMMI Community to sign up to this group and our other special interest groups.

People, projects and publications

People

Dr Sandy Wright

Principal Research Fellow
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Dr Sergio Vernuccio PhD, CEng, MIChemE, MRSC, FHEA

Associate Professor in Chemical Eng.

Research interests

  • Complex reaction kinetics
  • Microkinetic modelling
  • Heterogeneous catalysis

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Seyedvahid Vakili

Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Sustainable shipping;
  • Net zero emissions;
  • Alternative fuels for (maritime) net zero emissions;
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Dr Sheida Afshan PhD, FICE, MIStructE, CEng, FHEA

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • High performance metallic materials and structures for applications in infrastructure and energy sectors
  • Experimental and numerical investigation of structural materials and components
  • Metallic materials for liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel storage and transportation

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor Simon Blainey PhD, FRGS, FHEA, MCIHT, CMILT

Research interests

  • Rail demand and operations modelling
  • GIS and transport
  • Transport decision support systems

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Simon Boxall

Principal Teaching Fellow
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Professor Simon Cox

Head of Department

Research interests

  • My research focusses on computational tools, technologies and platforms and how they enable interdisciplinary problems to be solved in engineering and science.His team in the Computational Engineering and Design Group is applying and developing high performance and cloud computing in a variety of collaborative interdisciplinary computational science and engineering projects. These include:
  • High Performance and novel Computing SystemsCloud Computing and commercial distributed computing - which led to a spin out companyApplied computational algorithms Computational electromagnetics– which led to the formation of a spin-off company.New algorithms such as meshless methods and fast solvers.Data Management Simon is also Director of the Microsoft Institute for High Performance computing where he demonstrates why, where and how current and future Microsoft tools and technologies can be exploited to enable engineering and scientific research to deliver faster, cheaper and better results.
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Professor Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon

Research interests

  • Data Protection
  • Data Governance
  • Platform Regulation
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Dr Stephanie Blankshein PhD

Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Maritime/underwater archaeology
  • Landscape archaeology
  • Prehistory

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor Stephanie Jones

Professor of Literature and Law

Research interests

  • Literature and Law
  • Postcolonial and decolonial studies
  • Marine and maritime literatures
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Related research institutes, centres and groups

Related research institutes, centres and groups

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Enquiries

If you're interested in joining us or collaborating, get in touch with the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute.