Current Lab Members

María Josefina Olascoaga

Professor and Graduate Program Director, Applied Marine Physics, Department of Ocean Sciences

M. Josefina Olascoaga is Professor of Ocean Sciences at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science of the University of Miami. She employs modern tools from nonlinear dynamical systems theory to understand biogeochemical processes in the ocean that involve transport by currents. She combines analysis with field and laboratory experiments. The specific tools involve the concept of Lagrangian Coherent Structures, which form the building blocks of transport, and tools from probability theory, which enable delineating 'optimal' transport pathways. Examples of applications include forecasting oil slick instabilities from the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico; constraining larval connectivity in the Gulf of Mexico with implications for Pulley Ridge as a central refugium for species; determining Sargassum windage and connectivity in the tropical Atlantic.

Olascoga was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she obtained a Licentiate in oceanography from Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA) in 1994. She then moved to Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico to pursue graduate education at Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE). There she obtained a MSc degree (1996) under the direction of Professor Julio Sheinbaum and an ScD degree (2001) in physical oceanography under the advise of the late Professor Pedro Ripa. She subsequently moved to Miami to pursue postdoctoral training at RSMAS. She joined the RSMAS faculty in 2008.

Institutional Website, Google Scholar

Francisco Javier Beron-Vera

Research Professor, Department of Atmospheric Science

F. Javier Beron-Vera is Research Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science of the University of Miami. 

Beron-Vera has now 20+ years working at the interface of nonlinear
dynamics and geophysical fluid dynamics. His research program includes  three main lines. The first line uses and develops deterministic techniques from finite-dimensional dynamical systems to study transport and mixing processes in geophysical flows. A second line employs techniques from ergodic theory to investigate the long-time-asymptotic behavior of transported scalars. The third line applies geometric tools from infinite-dimensional systems to derive reduced geophysical flow models with application in very-long climate simulations and testing structure-preserving numerical schemes. In all cases, very concrete environmental problems of societal relevance provide motivation. A fourth line of research is being developed, dealing with machine learning and symbolic discovery of dynamics.

Beron-Vera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he obtained a Licentiate in oceanography from Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA) in 1994. He then moved to Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico to pursue graduate education. He obtained MSc (1996) and ScD (2001) degrees in physical oceanography from Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE) under the advise of the late Professor Pedro Ripa. He subsequently moved to Miami to pursue postdoctoral training at RSMAS. He joined the RSMAS faculty in 2010.

Institutional Website, Google Scholar

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Ramona Joss - 

Undergrad student Physics program

Michael Castellucci -

Undergrad student MSC & Computer Sci program