The Salish Sea Model and associated products including hydrodynamic and water quality hindcast solution files and forecasts (to follow), support a growing community of scientists, engineers, planners, water-quality managers, and land-use managers who are dedicated to sustainable practices and the protection of our valuable coastline and marine ecosystem. Our experienced team at the Salish Sea Modeling Center can address a wide variety of topics that are of interest including pollution identification and exposure assessment, biogeochemical and ecosystem modeling, toxics fate and transport modeling, sediment transport modeling, habitat restoration feasibility assessment, and sea level rise and climate change modeling analysis.
SSMC Team
Tarang Khangaonkar, Director, Salish Sea Modeling Center
Dr. Khangaonkar is the Director of the Salish Sea Modeling Center (SSMC) at University of Washington Tacoma, through a dual appointment with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He brings the necessary enthusiasm, expertise, experience and vision to SSMC. This includes goals such as advancement and use of state-of-the-art models of the Salish Sea ecosystem, to foster a transparent and collaborative environment for ocean modeling, and, to continue expansion, and development of the Salish Sea Model – Operational Forecast System for our community.
Taiping Wang, Research Scientist, Salish Sea Modeling Center
Taiping is a coastal modeler with many years of experience in estuarine and coastal ocean modeling. His work is focused on interdisciplinary marine environmental topics, such as circulation, water quality, storm surge, marine renewable energy, and nearshore wetland restoration. He is a licensed civil engineer in Washington State.
Adi Nugraha, Research Scientist, Coastal Modeling
Adi Nugraha is a coastal modeler expert in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He is the key modeler for the development of hydrodynamic and transport model of Salish Sea, and he has long term experience in oceanographic data analysis, signal processing and parameter identification. Dr. Nugraha has also involved in several projects related to data measurements and real-time monitoring of water quality and oceanographic parameters.
Lakshitha Premathilake, Research Scientist, Coastal Modeling
Lakshitha Premathilake recently joined PNNL’s Salish Sea model development team as a post-doctoral researcher to conduct research and model development related to: marine hydrodynamics, ocean outfalls, pollutant transport, marine biogeochemistry, data driven ecological modeling, and toxics transport in Salish Sea.
Sukyong Yun, Research Scientist, Coastal Modeling
Su Kyong Yun has joined Salish Sea Modeling Center as an associate research scientist to conduct comprehensive research and projects related to water quality management in Puget Sound with SSM-OFS solutions. Su Kyong is especially interested in bridging the valley of death, the gap between academic research, and the application to solve environmental problems based on the data for a sustainable and inclusive society.
Wenfei Ni, Research Scientist, Coastal Modeling
Wenfei joined the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Coastal Modeling group and became a member of Salish Sea model team in Feb 2022, to participate in multi-disciplinary research and model development application activities related to the Salish Sea and Puget Sound ecosystem restoration. She is specifically interested to use data science techniques to study Earth system processes and understand how humans interact with and impact the environment.
Aditi Mitra, Postdoctoral Researcher, Coastal Modeling
Dr. Aditi Mitra has joined the Salish Sea Modelling Center at the University of Washington, Tacoma, as a postdoctoral researcher. Her primary expertise is in coastal hydrodynamic and sediment transport modeling. She is also interested in interdisciplinary research through collaboration. At the center, she will contribute to refining the Salish Sea model to enhance the accuracy of water elevation predictions in various estuaries around the Salish Sea.
Lily Engel, Postdoctoral Researcher, Coastal Modeling
Lily Engel joined PNNL’s Salish Sea Modeling team in Sept 2023 to perform larval dispersal modeling of the invasive European green crab. She also currently assists the team with toxics and zooplankton modeling. Her previous research was in studying physical-biological interactions in estuaries using idealized box models.
SSMC Collaborators
WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Puget Sound Institute
University of Washington
- Michael T. Brett
- Ben Robert