Congratulations to Josh Kohut who has been promoted to Full Professor. He was recognized for his efforts on translating science-based research in a way that informs applications, decision-making, and management of ocean resources. Beyond his research and extension work, Josh has established a highly effective graduate and undergraduate teaching program with a specific focus on developing hands-on learning opportunities for the students. Josh’s scholarship is focused on how highly variable physical processes in the ocean structure coastal biology and chemistry.
Josh deployed the world’s first integrated High Frequency (HF) Radar network capable of continuously measuring ocean circulation along the northeast United States. This network is now the world’s largest nested HF network and has provided fundamental insights in the circulation of the continental shelves, the ocean transport of pollution, river inputs, distribution of fish larvae, and has reduced Coast Guard search by 70% during rescue missions. The radars have provided invaluable insights into the physical oceanography during extreme weather (Nor’Easters and Hurricanes) and the physical factors that regulate storm intensity at landfall. Weather forecasters had made little progress in improving storm intensity forecasts in decades, but Josh helped discover critical previously underappreciated coastal circulation processes that influence the storm intensity at landfall. These insights are spurring a re-examination of the ocean models at the National Weather Service.
Josh also been a leader in been a leader in the use of underwater autonomous glider technology in the oceans. He and his students have documented how ocean warming in Antarctica and the associated ice melt are altering the upper ocean vertical mixing processes which are directly affecting phytoplankton growth, that in turn is influencing penguin foraging ecology. One external reviewer commented “Josh is an absolutely tremendous example of how quality scholarship can dovetail quite closely with solving societally and economically important questions.”
