Faculty Spotlight: Professor Jeffrey Koseff

Faculty Spotlight: Professor Jeffrey Koseff

How do you describe your profession and the work you do?

I am a fluid mechanician by training. I study the physics of how water flows, and how substances mix within water. Many fluid mechanicians help design things in your everyday life. Fluid mechanicians in the aeronautical engineering field help design the airplanes you fly in. Fluid mechanicians in mechanical engineering help design the systems that cool your house during heat waves and heat your house when it is cold. I apply fluid mechanics to the natural environment to study how fragile ecosystems in the near-coastal ocean function. Many people refer to this particular branch of fluid mechanics as environmental fluid mechanics. 

In particular, I study coral reefs, kelp forests, and sea-grass communities to see how dependent they are on their particular physical environments. How do waves affect their behavior? How do changes in temperature affect their behavior? Can they in turn provide protection to our shorelines from extreme wave and flow events? I also study how things such as sediment, plankton, and oxygen mix in these environments. All of these elements are critical to the functioning of these ecosystems. Understanding how they are mixed by waves and currents – especially when the density of the ocean is not constant due to temperature and salinity differences – is really important.

When did you first get introduced to the field of engineering?

I have been fascinated by airplanes ever since I can remember. My parents used to keep many of the drawings I made of airplanes when I was pretty young and so I have a record dating back to the late 1950s! I was also fascinated from a young age with some of the concepts that one would associate with water supply: building dams to hold water, canals to transport the water, etc.

In the mid-sixties there was a terrible drought in the part of South Africa in which I lived (in and around Johannesburg). The drought gripped the imagination of the entire region because the major water supply to the region was drying up rapidly. The local afternoon newspaper published a “scorecard” showing the level of the reservoir, and every day I watched with growing apprehension as the drought pushed the levels to new, precipitously low levels. We were in serious trouble because there were not, at that time, any real alternatives. And then, miraculously, it began to rain. Epic rain. Biblical scale! I now tracked the scorecard to monitor the rapidly rising water levels in the reservoir. One Friday the newspaper reported that the dam was more than 100% full and that it was likely that the authorities would open the sluice gates some time on Sunday to prevent the dam from overtopping. On Sunday my father suggested to us that anyone interested in seeing the incredible spectacle of water flowing over a spillway in huge quantities should get in the car and travel the 50 miles with him to the dam. I thought we were the only crazy people in all of Johannesburg who would even think of doing that, but when we arrived there the viewing area was packed with people from everywhere. It was truly amazing! That whole episode – from the debilitating desperation of the drought, to the soaring optimism with the rainfall, to the inspiring sight of the spillway flow – left a huge impression on me which I carry with me today in what I do.

Tell me a little about your pathway to your profession and field of study.

My penchant for building things also extended to dwellings and I entertained thoughts of being an architect until well into my teens – I honestly thought I was going to study architecture at university. I had reasonably good three-dimensional visualization skills, a good sense of scale and balance, and the math skills necessary to master the structural design components of being an architect. But I was not particularly good at drawing or imagining projects. So, with the encouragement of architect friends of my parents, I went to study civil engineering. Given some of my childhood interests, I became more and more interested in how we provide and supply water for human use and developed a strong interest in hydrology and water resources. There were a number of very large-scale water supply projects that had been developed in Southern Africa and they inspired me to further my studies and do graduate work in this area. I came to Stanford in 1977 to study hydrology and water resources, but as fate would have it things took a somewhat different turn – to environmental fluid mechanics.

What about this work inspires you?

My work sits squarely at the intersection of meeting human needs and protecting the life support systems of the planet. When we founded the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, we defined our mission as meeting the following challenge: How will we provide food, energy, water, shelter, and livelihood for all humankind while protecting the life support systems of our planet … now and for future generations.

The everyday challenge of meeting the needs of society and at the same time protecting our planet has defined everything I have done in my time at Stanford, both in terms of my own research and scholarship but also in terms of the institutions I have helped build at Stanford.

Civil and Environmental Engineering is fundamentally a “people and environment” profession. We serve both society and the environment. We build unique structures and facilities to do so, but we also take pride in harnessing the power of nature to accomplish our goals.

One of my proudest contributions that inspires me to this today was the construction of the Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2). To me, Y2E2 has always been much more than a building. It is a symbol of what is possible in our transition to sustainability. It was designed for problem solving, designed to conserve, designed to inspire, and designed to teach. It has done all of that and then some. It has helped change our university in how we now design and build new facilities, and it has inspired us all to greater things, such as the Doerr School for Sustainability.

What challenges are you currently working to surmount?

On a research level, I am currently working on four projects. The first is to understand how microplastics in the ocean are transported by waves and currents. The second is to understand how the brine discharges from desalination plants in the near-coastal ocean mix and interact with the receiving waters. The third is to understand how fire spotting, whereby burning embers are lofted and travel great distances downwind, affects the propagation and spread of wildfires. Interestingly enough, to understand this phenomenon we are applying a lot of what we learned in flows over seagrass communities. And finally, I am still working to understand how coral reef communities interact with flow and waves, and how to model those interactions.

On an institutional level, I am working on a number of issues. First, I am co-chairing for the university president the Subcommittee on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias at Stanford. We hope to issue our report sometime in May. I am also working as the Faculty Athletic Representative to the Pac-12 to support student-athletes at Stanford, and to help ensure a smooth transition this fall to the ACC. And finally, I am working with a number of faculty to create an Engineering Academy for emeritus faculty so that they can continue to contribute actively to the university after they retire.

What challenges have you overcome in the past?

I have been fortunate over my 41 years on the faculty to be part of a number of activities that helped change the university. Perhaps the most significant is helping to move the academy at Stanford from one which solely valued individual excellence as a means of achieving impact to one that values interdisciplinarity and collaboration. Good examples of the institutions we built and created to achieve this are the Earth Systems Program, the E-IPER PhD program, the Sustainability Science and Practice coterminal master’s program, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP), and the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency (PIEE). Both GCEP and PIEE were later merged into the Precourt Institute for Energy. All of those entities were created to promote interdisciplinary, collaborative scholarship that broke down the silos between science and policy, and which promoted the creation of solutions to our global environmental, sustainability, and energy challenges.

What does it mean to you to be an engineer?

To me being an engineer means working on solving challenges and creating solutions that improve the livelihood of humans, that protect our planet, and that allow both to thrive. Being an engineer means using scientific tools, knowledge, and skills to produce solutions, but also social skills, empathy, and a strong moral compass in implementing them. I strongly believe that the engineers we train and educate at Stanford should be well-rounded in this sense.

What advice do you have for students considering engineering as a field to pursue?

Perhaps the only advice I would ever offer someone is the following: Do not be held back by your self-perceived sense of your own skills and strengths. Always follow your passion in choosing a path forward. Too many aspiring engineers give up because they don’t feel that they have the math and science skills to flourish. Don’t let that happen. My math skills have always been adequate but not great. I did not let that deter me from using other skills I had to follow my passion.