Professor D P Marshall

Professorial Fellow in Oceangraphy

I am a Physical Oceanographer interested in understanding the fluid dynamics of the global ocean circulation and the role of the oceans in climate.

I studied at Imperial College, London, where I obtained a first degree in Physics and a Doctorate in Physical Oceanography. I spent three years as a post-doctoral researcher at MIT, before returning the UK to establish the Physical Oceanography Group at the University of Reading. My research group relocated to Subdepartment of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics in 2007, as part of a new University of Oxford initiative in Physical Oceanography between the Departments of Physics and Earth Sciences.

Honours include a Philip Leverhulme Prize and and a Fellowship of the Challenger Society for Marine Sciences.

My work mainly involves the development of theoretical and computational models to elucidate the fluid dynamics of the global ocean circulation. A particular focus is the thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic, although I have interests in circulation features in each of the major ocean basins and on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. My group is also a partner in an initiative with Imperial College and the University of Southampton to develop the "next generation" of computational ocean models, exploiting recent develops in unstructured, dynamically-adaptive meshing to update the model resolution in response to evolving flow structures.

I am also Co-Director of the new 21st Century Ocean Institute, part of the James Martin 21st Century School.

For more details, please browse the Physical Oceanography Group webpage.