ALBERTO D. SCOTTI
Dept. of Marine Sciences, 3310 Venable Hall, CB 3300
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3300
Office:+1-919-962-9454, Fax:+1-919-962-1254
E-mail: ascotti@unc.edu
D.O.B.: 04-16-1969

INTERESTS:

Computational and theoretical fluid dynamics; numerical methods; turbulence, Large Eddy Simulation with applications to environmental flows and oceanography; oceanography; internal waves and stratified flows; sediment transport.

EDUCATION:

1997

Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
Ph.D. Thesis: ``On scale-invariance based models of hydrodynamic turbulence.''
(Prof. C. Meneveau, advisor)

1994

M.S. in Mechanical Engineering
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
M.S. Thesis: ``Fractal dimension of velocity signals in high-Reynolds number turbulence''
(Prof. C. Meneveau, advisor)

1992

Laurea in Fisica
Università degli studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
Tesi di laurea: ``Applicazioni del gruppo di rinormalizzazione allo studio della turbolenza isotropa'' (Applications of the RNG to the study of isotropic turbulence)
(Prof. C. Cercignani, E. Montaldi, advisors)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Fall 2010

Visiting Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Università di Trieste, Italy.

2007-present

Associate Professor, Dept. of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Summer 2008

Lecturer, 2008 Les Houches Summer School on Atmospheric Boundary Layers.

Spring 2005

Visiting Professor, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

2001-2007

Assistant Professor, Dept. of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

1999-2001

Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

1997-1999

Post Doctoral Scholar, Dr. R. Beardsley, Mentor.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA.

1996

Summer program fellow, Center for Turbulence Research, Stanford, CA

1992-1997

Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Mechanical Engineering The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

1987-1992

Teaching assistant, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione (Computer Science), Università degli studi di Milano, Milano, Italy

AWARDS AND HONORS:

1998

Winner of the Keith Runcorn Travel Award offered by the European Geophysical Society to present a paper at the 23rd General Assembly of the society.

1997

Winner of a "Post Doctoral Scholarship" at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA.

1996

Winner of the ``A. Frigerio'' award granted by the Italian Society of Physics.

1993-1995

Recipient of CNR fellowship.

1992

Graduated Università degli studi di Milano Magna Cum Laude.

TEACHING RECORD:

Courses Taught

• Boundary layers in Oceanography
• Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
• Seminars in Oceanography
• Fluid dynamics
• Environmental modeling
• Oceanography
• First Year Seminar: From The sound of music to The perfect storm.
• Numerical methods for LES and DNS.

Students advised

• H. Varshney (Civil and Environmental Engineering). Member of Ph.D. committee.
• J. Wilson (Physics). Member of MS committee and advisor.
• E. Santilli (Physics). Member of MS committee and advisor.
• M. James (Marine Sciences). Member of MS committee and advisor.
• C. Edwards (Marine Sciences). Member of Ph.D. committee.
• Z. Lin (Mathematics). Member of Ph.D. committee.
• J. Wendelbo (Marine Sciences). Member of PhD. committee and advisor.
• Tom Peters (Environmental Sciences and Engineering). Member of Ph.D. committee.
• Tony Sitthichok Puangthongthub (Environmental Sciences and Engineering). Member of Ph.D. committee.
• Pamela Birak (Environmental Sciences and Engineering). Member of Ph.D. committee.
• Marc Gasser (Marine Sciences). Member of Ph.D. Committee and advisor.
• Dr. Yeonsihk Chang (Marine Sciences). Postdoctoral mentor.
• Dr. P Fede (Marine Sciences). Postdoctoral mentor.
  

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:

Scientific committees

• 2010 DLES8, Eindhoven, Netherlands.
• 2009 Turbulence and Interaction, St. Lucie, Martinique.
• 2008 DLES7, Trieste, Italy.
  

Guest Editor

• Large amplitude internal waves in the coastal ocean, Special issue of Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics.
  

Service to discipline

• Refereed for Physical Review Letters, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Journal of Geophysical Research, Gephysical Research Letters, Deep Sea Research, Advances in Water Resources, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, AIAA Journal, ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems-Series B, Journal of Physical Oceanography, Physics of Fluids, Computer and Fluids, Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics, Boundary Layer Meteorology,Journal of Atmospheric Sciences,Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics,Oceanography,Journal of hydraulic research and Water Resources Research.

• Evaluated proposal for the National Science Foundations, the Science Centers of the U.S. Department of State and the Natural Sciences and Egineering Research Council of Canada.

• Co-convener of session on nonlinear waves at the 2006 AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 11-15 December 2006.

EXTERNAL FUNDING:
For multi-institution proposals, actual amount awarded to UNC is indicated.

Principal Investigator

Barotropic to baroclinic energy conversion across topographically rough straits with application to the Luzon Strait. Amount: $312,220. Period covered: 10/01/08 - 30/09/13. Sponsoring agency: ONR. (with S. Sarkar, UCSD).

Collaborative Research: Internal waves impinging on near-critical slopes. Amount: $207,710. Period covered: 09/01/08 - -9/31/11/ Sponsoring agency: NSF. (with S. Sarkar, UCSD).

Collaborative Research:The dynamics of shoaling and breaking nonlinear internal waves: Their associated mass transport and mixing and buoyancy and energy balances. Amount: $101,983. Period covered:01/01/07 - 31/12/10. Sponsoring agency: NSF. (with J. Lerczak WHOI and K. Shearman, OSU).

Collaborative Research: Rapid gravitational adjustment of horizontally sheared gravity currents. Amount: $99,604. Period covered:09/01/07 - 08/31/10. Sponsoring agency: NSF. (with K. Helfrich, WHOI).

A holistic approach to modeling nonlinear internal waves with a three-dimensional nonhydrostatic model. Amount: $399,00. Period covered: 6/1/05 - 31/5/10. Sponsoring agency: ONR. (S. Mitran and M. Minion Co-Pi)

Collaborative research: Sediment transport in oscillating turbulent boundary layers. Amount: $361,500. Period covered: 10/1/03 - 9/30/06. Sponsoring agency: NSF.

A regional adaptive model for the study of nonlinear internal waves. Amount: $200,000. Period covered: 1/1/03 - 12/31/04. Sponsoring agency: ONR. (S. Mitran and M. Minion Co-Pi)

Numerical investigation of the wave boundary layer over rippled bed with application to sediment transport. Amount: $131,000. Period covered: 10/01/99 - 09/31/03. Sponsoring agency: NSF.

Co-Principal Investigator

An Experimental System for stratified Fluid Dynamics Research at the UNC Joint Fluids Laboratory. Amount: $400,752. ONR-DURIP. (R. Camassa PI and R. McLaughlin Co-PI)

Acquisition of A Modular Wave Tank for Fundamental and Applied Research in the New UNC Multiscale Fluid Dynamics Lab. Amount: $619,600. Period covered: 08/01/06 - 07/30/09. Sponsoring agency: NSF (R. Camassa Pi, R. McLaughlin and C. Werner Co-Pi).

Collaborative Research. CMG: Multi-Scaled Dependent, Heavy Tailed Distributions in Geophysical Flow: Physical Mechanisms and Data Assimilation. Amount: $480,000. Period covered: 09/15/03 - 09/14/06. Sponsoring agency: NSF (R. McLaughlin PI).

Biocomplexity: Marine benthic population dynamics. Amount awarded to UNC: $142,600 (out of a total of $3,012,432). Period covered: 09/01/00 - 08/30/05. Sponsoring agency: NSF (J. Pineda PI, 4 other Co-Pis from WHOI).

A Distributed, High Performance Computing System for the Applied Sciences. Amount: $598,173. Period covered: 08/10/01- 07/31/04. Sponsoring agency: NSF (R. Camassa PI).

Subcontracts

Plankton distribution in internal waves in Massachusetts Bay. Amount: $35,304. Period covered: 01/01/01 - 12/31/03. Sponsoring agency: ONR.

Atmospheric forcing and its spatial variability over the Sea of Japan. Amount: $128,284. Period covered: 10/01/99 - 30/06/03. Sponsoring agency: ONR.

PUBLICATIONS
(Boldface titles denote invited contributions)

CHAPTERS in BOOKS (refereed):

A. Scotti, M. Gasser i Rubinat and E. Balaras, "LES of pulsating turbulent flows over smooth and wavy boundaries", in Notes on Numerical Fluid Mechanics and Multidisciplinary Design, Turbulence and Interactions, Keynote lectures of the TI 2009 conference, (Springer-Verlag) (2010).

A. Scotti, "DNS of a gravity current propagating over a free-slip boundary", in Direct and Large Eddy Simulation VII, Proceedings of the Seventh International ERCOFTAC Workshop on Direct and Large Eddy Simulation, V. Armenio, B. Geurts and J. Frölich eds., (Springer-Verlag) (2010).

U. Piomelli, A. Scotti & E. Balaras , "Large Eddy Simulation of turbulent flows, from desktop to supercomputer", in Vector and Parallel Processing, VECPAR2000, Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences, J.M.L.M. Palma et al. eds., (Springer-Verlag) 551-577 (2001).

REFEREED JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

A. Scotti and B. White, Is Horizontal Convection really ``non-turbulent''?, G. Res. Lett., In press, 2011.

E. Santilli and A. Scotti, An efficient nethod for solving elliptic equations on highly anisotropic grids, J. Comp. Phys., 230(23), 8342-8359 , 2011.

A. Scotti, Inviscid critical and near-critical reflection of internal waves in the time domain, J. Fluid Mech., 674, 464-488, 2011

R. Grimshaw, K. Helfrich and A. Scotti, Large amplitude internal waves in the coastal ocean, Nonlinear Proc. Geophys., 18, 653-655, 2010.

A. Scotti, Large Eddy Simulation in the ocean, Int. J. Comp. Fluid Dyn. 24(10), 393-406, 2010 (DOI: 10.1080/10618562.2010.522527).

A. Scotti and S. Mitran, An approximated method for the solution of elliptic problems in thin domains: Application to nonlinear internal waves, Ocean Modelling, 25, 144-153, 2008.

A. Scotti, A numerical study of the frontal region of a gravity current propagating over a free-slip surface, Theor. Comp. Fluid Dyn., 22, 383-402, 2008.

A. Scotti, R. C. Beardsley, B. Butman and J. Pineda, Shoaling of Nonlinear Internal Waves in Massachusetts Bay, J. Geophys. Res., 113, C08031, doi:10.1029/2008JC004726, 2008.

J. C. Bronski, R. Camassa, Z. Lin, R. M. McLaughlin and A. Scotti, An explicit family of probability measures for passive scalar diffusion in a random fluid flow, J. Stat. Phys., 128, 927-968, 2007

A. Scotti, R. C. Beardsley and B. Butman, Generation and propagation of nonlinear internal waves in Massachusetts Bay, J. Geophys. Res., 112, C10001, doi:10.1029/2007JC004313, 2007.

Scotti, A. and J. Pineda, ``Plankton accumulation and transport in propagating nonlinear internal fronts,'' J. Marine Res., 65, 1-30, 2007.

B. Butman, P. S. Alexander, A. Scotti, R. C. Beardsley and S. Anderson, ``Large internal waves in Massachusetts Bay transport sediment offshore'', Cont. Shelf Res., 26, 2029-2049, 2006.

C. Dorman, K. Friehe, J. Khelif, A. Scotti, J. Edson, R. Beardsley, D. Limeburner and S. Chen, ``Winter Atmospheric Conditions over the Japan Sea; the structure and impact of severe Cold-Air Outbreaks'', Oceanography, 19(3), 68-81, 2006.

A. Scotti R. C. Beardsley and B. Butman, ``On the interpretation of energy and energy fluxes of nonlinear internal waves: An example from Massachusetts Bay'', J. Fluid Mech., 561, 103-112, 2006.

A. Scotti, ``DNS of turbulent channel flows with boundary roughened with virtual sandpaper'', Phys. Fluids, 18(3), 031701, 2006.

Y-S Chang and A. Scotti, ``Turbulent Convection of Suspended Sediments due to Flow Reversal'', J. Geophys. Res., 111, C07001, doi:10.1029/2005JC003240, 2006.

A. Scotti, ``Orographic effects during winter cold-air outbreaks over the Sea of Japan (East Sea): Results from a shallow-laer model'',Deep-Sea Research Part II, 52, 1705-1725, 2005.

A. Scotti, B. Butman, R. C. Beardlesy, P.S. Alexander and S. Anderson, ``A modified beam-to-earth transformation to measure short-wavelength internal waves with an acoustic Doppler current profiler'', J. Atmosp. Ocean. Tech., 22, 583-591, 2005.

A. Scotti and J. Pineda, ``Observation of very large and steep internal waves of elevation near the Massachusetts coast'', Geophysical Research Letters', 31, L22307, 2004.

Y-S Chang and A. Scotti, ``Modeling unsteady turbulent flows over ripples: Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS) versus large-eddy simulation (LES)'', J. Geophys. Res., 109(C9) C09012, 2004.

Y-S Chang and A. Scotti, ``Entrainment and suspension of sediments into a turbulent flow over ripples'', Journal of Turbulence, 4, 019, 2003.

A. Scotti & U. Piomelli "Turbulence models in pulsating flows", AIAA Journal, 40(3) 537-544 (2002).

J. Colosi, J. Lynch, R. Beardsley, G. Gawarkiewicz, Scotti & C-S Chiu, "Observations of non-linear internal waves on the outer New England continental shelf during the summer shelfbreak PRIMER study", Journal of Geophysical Research, 106(C5) 9587-9601 (2001).

P. Fratantoni, B. Pickart, D. Torres and A. Scotti , "Mean synoptic structure of the shelf break jet in the Middle Atlantic Bight", Journal of Physical Oceanography, 31, 2135-2156 (2001).

A. Scotti & U. Piomelli , "Numerical simulation of pulsating turbulent channel flow", Physics of Fluids, 13(5), 1367-1384 (2001).

A. Scotti & C. Meneveau, "A fractal model for Large Eddy Simulation of turbulent flows", Physica D, 127, 192-232 (1999).

A. Scotti & C. Meneveau, ''Fractal model for coarse-grained partial differential equations'', Phys. Rev. Let., 78, 867-870 (1997).

A. Scotti, C. Meneveau & M. Fatica, ''Dynamic Smagorinsky model on anisotropic grids'', Phys. Fluid, 9, 1856-1858 (1997).

T. Osborn & A. Scotti, ``The effect of turbulence on predator-prey contact rates: where to go from here?'', Marine Ecology Progress Series, 139, 302-304 (1996).

A. Scotti, C. Meneveau & S. G. Saddoughi 1995, ``Fractal dimension of velocity signals in high-Reynolds-number hydrodynamic turbulence'', Phys. Rev. E, 51, 5594-5608 (1995).

A. Scotti, C. Meneveau & D. K. Lilly, ``Generalized Smagorinsky model for anisotropic grids'', Phys. Fluids A, 5, 2306-2308 (1993).

INVITED ORAL PRESENTATIONS

A. Scotti, Hydrostatic ma non troppo. Leptic expansion and Poisson solvers in thin domains, APS DFD, Long Beach, CA, 2010.

A. Scotti and S. Sarkar, A multiscale approach to boundary layer mixing, Ocean Sciences, Portland, OR, 2010.

A. Scotti Nonlinear internal waves in Massachusetts Bay: using a model to make sense of observations, Workshop on Large amplitude internal waves, Edinburgh, 2008.

A. Scotti, M. Gasser i Rubinat and E. Balaras, LES of pulsating turbulent flows over smooth and wavy boundaries, Keynote lecture, Turbulence and Interactions, St. Lucie, Martinique, June 2009.

A. Scotti, Sand and waves: Oscillating turbulent boundary layers over a movable bed, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, March 2006.

A. Scotti, ``The evolution of nonlinear internal waves in Massachusetts Bay: observations and model results'', 2004 AGU-CGU Joint assembly, May 17-21, Montreal, CA.

A. Scotti, ``Nonlinear internal waves in Massachusetts Bay'', Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics'', The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (2002).

Scotti, A. & Meneveau, "Turbulence parameterization using fractal synthetic fields", presented at the 23rd General Assembly of the European Geophysical Society (solicited paper), Nice, France 20-24 April 1998.

CHAPTERS in BOOKS (not reviewed):

A. Scotti, C. Meneveau & M. Fatica, ''Dynamic Smagorinsky model on anisotropic grids'', Proceedings of the CTR Summer Program 1996 (1996)

IN PREPARATION OR SUBMITTED MANUSCRIPTS:

M. James and A. Scotti, Streaming in the turbulent boundary layer under progressive waves: a DNS/LES approach, to be submitted to J. of Turb.

A. Scotti, Viscous effects on the reflection of critical and near-critical internal waves in the time domain, to be submitted to J. Fluid Mech.

S. Salon, A. Scotti and V. Armenio, The Stokes-Ekman layer at criticality, to be submitted to Phys. Fluids.

PROFESSIONAL REFERENCES

Prof. U. Piomelli
McLaughlin Hall, Room 217
130 Stuart St
Kingston, ON K7L 3N6
Canada
Phone: +1-613-533-2758
Fax: +1-613-533-6489
Email: ugo@me.queensu.ca

Prof. S. Sarkar
Chair
Office: 578 EBUII
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0411
Phone:+1-85-534-8243
Fax:+1-858-534-7599
Email: ssarkar@UCSD.Edu

Dr. Karl R. Helfrich
Senior Scientist
Physical Oceanography
Mailstop 21
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Woods Hole, MA 02543
Phone:+1-508-289-2870
Fax: +1-508-457-2181
Email: khelfrich@whoi.edu