Poojitha D. Yapa

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering

Clarkson University

Poojitha D. Yapa, a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA has B.Sc (Honors) in Civil Engineering and M.Sc in Hydraulic engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Clarkson University. His research has focused on “environmental hydraulics problems”. For over 25 years his research has been focused on oil spill modeling. This includes not only trajectory modeling, but modeling physico-chemical processes oil undergo when spilled in the ocean or rivers. In the last 20 years his modeling has been on deepwater oil, gas, and hydrates, studying the complex processes they undergo during the travel from deepwater to the surface. Prof. Yapa and his students developed computer models such as CDOG, MEGADEEP, and ADMS for modeling the behavior of oil and gas when released in deepwater. The work has been published in leading journals. Prof. Yapa received the prestigious Erskine fellowship from New Zealand and Gledden Fellowship from Australia for long term visits to their Universities. He has also been invited to Universities in Japan. He has given over 60 invited seminars in 11 countries.

He has numerous publications in leading Hydraulic Engineering and research journals and has been the associate editor of hydraulic journals of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as well as the International Association of Hydraulic Research (IAHR). Prof. Yapa chaired the Task Committee on Modeling of Oil Spills formed by the ASCE. He was a member of the advisory committee to NOAA on GNOME Model. He was also a member of Task Committee on Best Practices in Oil Spill Modeling, CRRC/NOAA. During the Horizon oil spill Gulf of Mexico Prof. Yapa was invited by The US government to be an adviser to NOAA on Deepwater plumes as well as a member of the Flow Rate Task Group (FRTG) that calculated the oil discharge rate.International Association of Hydraulic Research (IAHR) appointed Prof. Yapa to be the chair of a most recently formed Task group to look into oil spill related research problems. He received United States Geological Services (USGS) director`s award for exemplary services to the nation for the work he did during 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill response.