Jeffrey Knowles

Jeff Knowles teaches a variety of courses, ranging from hydraulics and statics to geotechnical engineering and dynamics. In each of these courses he carries an enthusiasm for education which facilitates a safe and open learning environment. In terms of pedagogy, he has acquired abundant experience in crafting a Socratic, yet technically focused, instructional style that is palatable and easy to digest. Teaching is something that gives Jeff a great sense of integrity, and is further reinforced by the establishment of intellectual relationships with his students. Jeff’s view on learning is that it is sometimes necessary to see each tree before you can see the entire forest.

With a focus in nearshore ocean-wave dynamics, Jeff Knowles implements a combination of numerical experimentation with analytical modeling to make predictions of maximum wave height and runup in coastal environments. Much of Jeff’s work has revolved around the phenomena of solitons and exploiting some of their remarkable features to understand the shoaling processes associated with hazardous tsunami incidents, such as the catastrophic 2011 Tohoku event. Knowles performs virtual simulations with the use of high-accuracy computational tools to track the evolution of shallow-water waves over variable bathymetry. Recently, Jeff’s field of focus has expanded beyond the realm of tsunami-wave modeling and has spilled over into areas of Geotechnical Engineering, focusing on the risk and life-cycle analysis of rockfall protection structures.