CEE is pleased to welcome Morteza Derakhti to the department faculty as an assistant professor. The appointment formalizes his dual role at the UW, where he already holds a primary position in the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).

Derakhti brings a comprehensive background in ocean wave and coastal modeling, specifically in Coastal Engineering and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). He comes to the department with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Tehran, as well as a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Delaware. He joined the UW faculty in 2018.

His research portfolio covers a broad spectrum of topics, from the dynamics of ocean waves and their impact on structures to the exploration of nearshore hydrodynamics, extreme weather phenomena and the effects of climate change. Derakhti's work is notable for integrating advanced CFD and wave-phase-resolving numerical models with empirical data from fieldwork and laboratory studies. He aims to improve how we understand and manage coastal areas and oceans, making it easier to tackle challenges like erosion, flooding and the impacts of climate change.

In addition to his research, Derakhti is dedicated to teaching the next wave of engineers the skills necessary to address contemporary challenges.