A major is an organized curriculum that is part of an existing degree program. A major must be associated with the degree program under which it is offered and must share common core courses and usually shares prerequisite courses with all other majors in the same degree program.
This major involves mathematical modeling, fluid dynamics, and environmental factors dealing with wildland and prescribed fires. No other such major exists in Computational Sciences or the SUS.
Common Core Courses: Scientific Programming (ISC 5305) and Applied Computational Science-1, ACS-1 (ISC 5315) is the core set.
Physical science and mathematically prepared students who are interested in the environment and natural systems; meteorology students interested in the role of aerosols, particulates, and gases emitted by forest fires and prescribed burning; physics or engineering students desiring to apply their knowledge to combustion in a natural environment, wildland fire experts who desire to further their academic career, computationally oriented students who desire a problem of direct importance to society, management and agency personnel who deal with the impact of wildland fires.
There is a long history of studies on the ecological effects of fire, and some work in engineering setting on the mechanisms of fire generation and propagation. However, to our knowledge there is no other formal PhD framework for the study of fire in a degree program as a fluid dynamical phenomenon, with complex physical, chemical, and turbulent interactions with the environment.
Major requirements will be ISC5305, ISC5315, Fire Dynamics core courses plus 12 credit hours from the elective courses.
Fire Dynamics core courses:
GFD 5XXX Intra to Fire Operations (NWCG S-130/S-190) with written project. Special topics courses
In collaboration with Tall Timbers Research Station (TTRS), The Jones Ecological Research Center,
Apalachicola National Forest, Florida Forest Service, and the US Forest Service (USFS) Athens, GA. Certification to work in active fireline operations. These will be developed as real classroom courses with letter grades.
GFD 5XXX Fire Behavior and Ecology (TTRS, USFS)
GFD 5XXX Fire Dynamics Laboratory (TTRS) GFD 6925 GFD Colloquium
GFD 6935r Seminar
Graduate Courses
GFD 6905r Directed Individual Study (3). (S/U grade only.) May be repeated to a maximum of (48)
semester hours.
GFD 6915r Supervised Research (1-5). (S/U grade only.) May be repeated to a maximum of five semester hours.
GFD 6925 Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Colloquium (1). (S/U grade only.)
GFD 6935r Seminar (1-2). (S/U grade only.) May be repeated to a maximum of two (2) semester hours.
GFD 6980r Dissertation (1-12). A student may not enroll for GFD 6980r prior to passing the
preliminary (comprehensive) examination. Students must establish their ability to handle modern computer techniques applicable to their research.
GFD 8964r Doctoral Preliminary Examination (0). (P/F grade only)
GFD 8985r Dissertation Defense (0). (P/F grade only)
(Existing applied math, fluid dynamics, meteorology, engineering, and chemistry courses.)
Elective Courses:
Engineering
Viscous fluid flows, turbulent flows, introduction to computational mechanics, water resources and environmental engineering, hydraulics, hydrology, ground water, and Combustion.
Courses: CEG 5125,5415, 5515, 5635; ECH 5934r, EGM 5456,5810, 6845; EML 5422, ENV 5045.
Geological Sciences
Geophysics, geomechanics, geophysical methods, seismology, modeling of groundwater flow, hydrology.
Courses: GLY 5425, 5455, 5465, 5556, 5573, 5575, 5825, 5826, 5827, 5868r.
Mathematics
Numerical analysis, vector and tensor analysis, ordinary and partial differential equations, matrix algebra, integral transforms and asymptotics, perturbation theory, hydrodynamic stability, wave propagation theory.
Courses: MAD 5708, 5738, 5739, 6408r; MAP 5207, 5217, 5345, 5346, 5423, 5431, 5441, 5512,
5513, 6434r, 6437r, 6939r.
Meteorology
Atmospheric thermodynamics, atmospheric dynamics, atmospheric circulation, weather prediction, satellite observations and remote sensing.
Courses: MET 5311,5312, 5340r, 5471, 5541r, 6308r, 6561r.
Oceanography
Stability of geophysical fluid flows, turbulence.
Courses: OCP 5056, 5253, 5256, 5271, 5285, 5551, 5930r, OCE 5009L.
Physics
Magnetohydrodynamics, principles of thermodynamics, mechanics, electricity and magnetism, theoretical dynamics, electrodynamics, statistical mechanics, astrophysics/combustion.
Courses: PHY 5246, 5346, 5347, 5524.
Statistics
Computational methods in statistics, statistical procedures for the natural sciences, statistical inference, probability, multivariate analysis, stochastic processes, applied time series analysis. Courses: STA 5106, 5206, 5326, 5327, 5440, 5447, 5807r.
Scientific Computing
Numerical methods, scientific visualization, scientific computing, Applied Computational Science II. Courses: ISC 5226, 5227, 5228, 5307, 5316
GFDI Faculty Associates and Research Interests:
Dr. Gang Chen (Characterization of Water Flow & Solute Transport, Modeling Sorption Kinetics, Colloid-facilitated Transport of Radionuclides, Bioremediation Kinetics & Genetic Microbiology, Interfacial Phenomena.)
Dr. Eric Chicken (Statistical process control, Nonparametric regression and density estimation, Statistical estimation via wavelets, Water flow models.)
Dr. Allan Clarke (Climate Dynamics, El Nino Predictions, Equatorial & Shelf Water Dynamics, Sea Level Rise.)
Dr. David Collins (Self-generated Turbulence in Magnetic Reconnection, Observational Diagnostics of Self-Gravitating MHO Turbulence in Giant Molecular Clouds, Mesh Refinement Code for Astrophysics, Gravity in magnetoturbulent fluids, Magnetic Fields in the Formation of Molecular Clouds, Astrophysics.)
Dr. William Dewar (Dynamics of the ocean at scales from 100 km to 10,000 km, or from the deformation scale to the basin scale.)
Dr. James Eisner (Hurricanes, tornadoes, climate change, applied statistics, spatial statistics.)
Dr. Scott Goodrick (Research Affiliate, Wildland fire emissions, carbon, and climate, Wildfire-climate interactions.)
Mr. J. K. Hiers (Res. Affiliate, interested in Fire Dynamics)
Dr. Peter Hoeflich (Radiation hydrodynamics, non-equilibrium thermodynamics and networks, nucleosynthesis and supernovae. Involved and initiated observational programs both at ground based observatories (VLT, Hawaii, Gemini) and satellites ranging from the Compel-gamma-ray, to HST and the SST.)
Dr. Markus Huettel (Ecology of coastal and shelf environments with emphasis on processes in the sediments and at the sediment-water interface.)
Dr. Matthew N. Moore (Modeling and simulation, especially fluid-structure interactions in geophysics and biology; applied POE, particularly nonlinear PDEs, evolution equations, and free boundary problems).
Dr. Ziad Muslimani (Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation, Spectral Transverse Instabilities, waves and their modulation instability, Integrable discrete PT symmetric model.)
Dr. Kevin Speer (Deep currents & polar circulation.)
Dr. Philip Sura (Stochastic-dynamical understanding of extreme climate events.)
Dr. Mark Sussman (Numerical Analysis, Fluid Dynamics, Deforming Boundary Problems.)
Dr. Youneng Tang (Sustainable biological processes for drinking production, Resource recovery from biological wastewater treatment, In-situ bio-remediation of groundwater and soil, Bio-souring mitigation during oil recovery, Mathematical modeling of biological processes in reactors and porous media, Microbial ecology.)
Dr. Kamal Tawfiq (Structural Foundations, Engineering Behavior of Construction Materials, Dynamic
Characterization of Material, Nondestructive Testing, Numerical Modeling.)
Dr. Neda Yaghoobian (Land atmosphere interaction, Boundary layer meteorology, Computational fluid dynamics, Urban microclimate, Energy efficiency and sustainability in buildings.)
EOAS Faculty and Research Interests:
Dr. Jon E. Ahlquist (Research on planetary scale atmospheric dynamics at interseasonal and interannual time scales).
Dr. Mark A. Bourassa (Air/Sea Interaction, Remote Sensing, Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Tropical Meteorology)
Dr. Ming Cai (Dynamics of global mass circulation, Climate Change, Stratosphere Troposphere Coupling.)
Dr. Jeffrey Chagnon (Mid-Latitude Dynamics Numerical Modeling)
Dr. Henry Fuelberg (Synoptic and Mesometeorology, Lightning, Long-range transport of pollutants and emissions.)
Dr. Robert Hart (Synoptic-Dynamic Meteorology, Tropical Cyclones, Cyclone genesis and development).
Dr. Guosheng Liu (Radiative transfer, Satellite remote sensing and applications to forecasting and climate research.)
Dr. Vasu Misra (Climate variability and predictability.)
Dr. Sharon Nicholson (Tropical meteorology)
Dr. Peter Ray (Physical Meteorology, Doppler Radar, Microphysical retrieval, Cloud Modeling.) Dr. Philip Sura (Stochastic-dynamical understanding of extreme climate events.)
Dr. Alison Wing (Tropical Convection and Climate, Tropical Cyclones.) Dr. Zhaohua Wu (Atmospheric and climate dynamics)
Dr. Ming Ye (Development and application of stochastic methods to describe flow and transport in randomly heterogeneous media).