My Expertise
My area of expertise is in Coastal Engineering. My research covers broad topics including storm to inter-annual shoreline change monitoring and modelling; coastal erosion and beach recovery; dune erosion; remote sensing of the coastal environment; and reef-top hydrodynamics. You can find more information about my work on my GScholar page.
Keywords
Fields of Research (FoR)
Geomorphology and earth surface processes, Marine engineering, Ocean engineering, Natural hazards, Machine learning, Marine Engineering, Ocean Engineering, Marine Geoscience, Physical Oceanography, Natural Hazards, Environmental Engineering ModellingSEO tags
Biography
Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Managing Director, Water Research Laboratory (WRL)
Professor Kristen Splinter is Managing Director of the world-renowned Water Research Laboratory (WRL). She leads a team of academics and engineers at WRL, which is based within the School and is a unique UNSW facility that melds together industry leading and blue sky research.
Kristen's area of expertise is in Coastal...view more
Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Managing Director, Water Research Laboratory (WRL)
Professor Kristen Splinter is Managing Director of the world-renowned Water Research Laboratory (WRL). She leads a team of academics and engineers at WRL, which is based within the School and is a unique UNSW facility that melds together industry leading and blue sky research.
Kristen's area of expertise is in Coastal Engineering. Her research covers broad topics including storm to inter-annual shoreline change monitoring and modelling; coastal erosion and beach recovery; dune erosion; remote sensing of the coastal environment and machine learning applications.
She is part of a dynamic and growing group within WRLCoastal alongside fellow researchers A/Prof. Mitch Harley and Prof. Ian Turner. Her group currently jointly supervises a number of PhD students, post-docs, Masters and Honours theses as well as international interns.
risten is a Chief Investigator for the new UNSW-led Centre of Excellence Our Future Oceans, which has received $35 million from the Australian Research Council to investigate and manage rapidly changing ocean systems. She holds a leadership position as part of the Centre Executive as the EDI Lead and is the Research Lead for RP3.1 Coastal Hazards and Adaptation. The Centre will comprehensively determine how oceans are changing, now and in the future, and develop solutions to promote ocean sustainability and a thriving blue economy. This represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Australia’s coastal engineering discipline to shape the long-term sustainability and prosperity of coastlines across the globe.
Kristen holds a Bachelors in Civil Engineering from Queen's University (Canada), Masters in Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering from University of Florida (USA); and a PhD in Geological Oceanography as well as a Certificate in Marine Resource Management from Oregon State University (USA). Prior to her position at UNSW Sydney (2011-present) she spent 2 years as a Research Fellow at the Griffith Centre for Coastal Management (Australia).
As a female engineer, Kristen has a strong desire to support and encourage more women into the discipline. She currently advocates for better gender equity within her discipline as a member of the Women in Coastal Geosciences and Engineering (WICGE).
Kristen also serves as Chair of the Engineers Australia NSW Coasts, Oceans, and Ports Engineering Panel (COPEP), and is a Senior Editor for Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures. She is also the co-founder of the Comomola seminar series with A/P Giovanni Coco – bringing machine learning and coastal processes research together.
More info can be found about my research and student recruitment at the following pages:
My Grants
Current Grants
Kristen Splinter; Javier Leon; Stuart Phinn; Matthieu de Schipper; Bruno Castelle; Danial Khojasteh: LP250100246. Estimating Coastal Topographic Change from Space. $655K
Prof Matthew England ; Prof Helen Bostock ; Prof Nicole Jones ; Dr Adele Morrison ; Prof Peter Strutton ; Prof Moninya Roughan ; Prof Ian Turner ; A/Prof Jan Zika ; Prof Thomas Baldock ; Prof Nathaniel Bindoff ; Prof Zanna Chase ; Prof Michael Ellwood ; A/Prof Jeff Hansen ; Prof Michelle Heupel ; Prof Andrew Hogg ; A/Prof Shane Keating ; Prof Ryan Lowe ; Dr Nicola Maher ; A/Prof Laurie Menviel ; Prof Helen Phillips ; Dr Matthew Rayson ; Prof Anthony Richardson ; Dr Tyler Rohr ; Dr Amandine Schaeffer ; A/Prof Alexander Sen Gupta ; Dr Callum Shakespeare ; A/Prof Paul Spence ; A/Prof Kristen Splinter ; A/Prof Wenhua Zhao ; Dr Pearse Buchanan ; Adj/Prof Elizabeth Fulton ; Dr Emlyn Jones ; Dr Bernadette Sloyan ; Dr Jessica Benthuysen ; Dr Katharina Fabricius ; Mrs Manuwuri Traceylee Forester ; Dr Barbara Robson ; Dr Kamran Shafi ; Dr Robbi Bishop-Taylor ; Dr Rachel Nanson ; Adj/Prof Matthew Taylor ; Dr Stephen Griffies ; Dr Amy Waterhouse ; Prof Falk Feddersen ; Dr Caroline Ummenhofer ; Prof Laure Zanna ; Dr Sophie Cravatte ; Dr Jerome Aucan ; Prof Alberto Naveira Garabato ; Prof Deborah Greaves ; Prof Dr Dano Roelvink ; Prof Dr Andreas Oschlies ; Prof Dr Tatiana Ilyina ; Dr Fabrice Ardhuin ; Dr Casimir de Lavergne ; Prof Sayaka Yasunaka ; Prof Axel Timmermann. CE260100001. Our Future Oceans. $35M
Past Successful Grants
Splinter, Turner, Coco, Palmsten. DP200100134. Quantifying the impact of infiltration on dune erosion under waves & surge. $370K
Turner, Lowe, Greenslade, Plant, Hansen, Splinter. LP170100161. An Australian storm wave damage and beach erosion Early Warning System. $505K
Splinter, Turner. Delivering a beach erosion forecasting system. NSW Environmental Trust. 2017-2019. $144K
Turner, Middleton, Splinter, Reniers, Davidson, Blenkinsopp. Beach Erosion and Recovery: Quantifying the Hazard. ARC Discovery 2015 - 2017. $423K
Castelle, Marieu, Senechal, Ruessink, Idier,Bujan, Ferreira, Splinter (I am a collaborator on 1 part of this grant) Processus cross-shore et longshore combines en morphodynamique littorale (French) ASTRID 2014, Agence de la Reserche (France). 207K euros.
Splinter, Davidson, Blenkinsopp, Turner. Development of a new Coastal Engineering 2-D beach profile model for predicting future coastline response to changing waves and sea-level. UNSW Australia Faculty of Engineering Early Career Research Grant, $20K.
Turner, Middleton, Goodwin, Splinter, Hanslow, Coates. ECL Impacts to beaches. Office of Environment and Heritage NSW Adaptation Research Hub. $66K
Splinter. Development and Application of 2 semi-empirical coastal evolution models to predict coastal change at timescales of days to years along Australian and French wave-dominated coastlines. France-Australia Science Innovation Collaboration (FASIC) Program Early Career Research Fellowship Australian Academy of Science. $5K.
My Qualifications
Ph.D. (2009) Geological Oceanography. Oregon State University, USA. Dissertation: Development of 2D Models to Estimate Nearshore Bathymetry and Sediment Transport.
Grad Cert (2009) Marine Resource Management. Oregon State University, USA.
M.Sc. (2004) Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering. University of Florida, USA. Thesis: Effects of Three-Dimensional Forcing on Alongshore Currents: A Comparative Study.
B.Sc. (Eng.) (2002) Civil Engineering, Environmental Option. 1st Class Honours. Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada. Thesis: Developing Protocols For Clinker-based Wetland Cells Used for Removing Phosphorus From Wastewater.
My Awards
(2022) WRL Director's Award for Excellence, UNSW Sydney
(2019) Future Women Leaders Conference Award, Monash University
(2015) Kevin Stark Award (Engineers Australia)
(2012) WRL Excellence Award, UNSW Sydney
My Research Activities
I study how our coastline (namely the beaches) erode and recover from changes in the size of waves, sediment supply, and water levels.
I develop simple numerical models based on broad-scale observations that can predict how beaches change due to changes in wave height and wave period. Two of the models that I have developed are based on the equilibrium concept (like a spring) that can predict the cross-shore movement of sandbars and the shoreline over timescales of days to years.
I also study how beaches change due to storms and their subsequent recovery, having published a large body of work on dune erosion and beach recovery processes based on both field analysis and numerical modelling.
I use remote sensing in a lot of my work. This includes the Google Earth Engine and PlanetLabs for developing new methods of shoreline extraction (For example, check out CoastSat which was developed by PhD student Kilian Vos). I also have a long history is using video/optical remote sensing techniques to study the nearshore. You can check out our coastal imaging stations here: http://ci.wrl.unsw.edu.au/
Recently I have also been involved with research projects to examine the hydrodynamics (waves and water levels) over reefs during extreme (cyclone) conditions. This work is particularly important in the context of rising sea levels and climate change, where Pacific Island Nations may become more vulnerable to these events due to reef submergence and degradation.
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
I am looking for talented and motivated engineering students with a keen interest in Coastal Engineering topics related to nearshore processes, sediment dynamics, coastal impacts in a changing climate, dune erosion, numerical modelling of coastal processes and reef-top hydrodynamics. My (virtual) door is always open to chat to prospective students. Please email me for more information.
If you are interested in pursuing Honours or Masters thesis or graduate study with me, email me with your CV, relevant transcripts, why you want to do research with me and interested topics.
Students interested in graduate studies at UNSW are encouraged to use the following resources.
UNSW Scholarship Application Guidelines – International & Domestic schemes(benefits, equity, work and other income), steps to complete application
FAQs for Scholarship applicants – for all scholarship applicants
UNSW Postgraduate Research Handbook – key information on policies, procedures, scholarships, examination, support etc.
Currently supervising
PhD:
Calcraft, K. (2026 -submitted) Machine Learning Models for Regional Scale Shoreline Modelling
Wilson, K. (2026 - expected) Seasonal-scale statistical modelling of Shoreline Evolution
Dong, B. (2026 - expected) Embayment scale shoreline modelling
Tucker, T. (2028 - expected) Intermittent Open and Closed Lagoons
MPhil:
Washburn, S. (2026 - expected) Application of satellite-derived shorelines in Alaska. [Collaboration with USGS]
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I have graduated 11 PhD students, 2 MPhil students and supervised over 50 ME and Honours students in their final year theses.
My Engagement
Invited to Review: Funding bodies: Australian Research Council (ARC DECRA and LIEF schemes, Australia); National Science Foundation (NSF, USA); ISAAC Program (Netherlands).
Invited to Review: Journals: Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR); Journal of Hydraulic Engineering; Continental Shelf Research; Coastal Engineering; Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering; Natural Hazards; Journal of Coastal Research; International Journal of Event Management Research; Applied Ocean Research; Environmental Monitoring and Assessment; IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering; Environmental Monitoring and Assessment; Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, Remote Sensing, Coasts and Ports Conference Series.
Editorial Boards: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering.
Conference Organising Committee: ICCE (2020); Empowering Female Leadership in Marine Science Workshop (2019); Coasts and Ports (2017); Conference on Women in Engineering (2001)
Conference Session Organiser/Chair/Judge: AGU Fall Meeting Machine Learning in Earth Surface Processes (2018-present); Estuarine, coastal, and shelf science conference (2018); AGU Ocean Sciences (2016); AGU Fall Meeting Nearshore Processes (2010, 2012, 2014); International Coastal Symposium (2013); Coasts and Ports (2013)
Professional committees: Women in Coastal Geoscience and Engineering, Engineers Australia NSW Coastal, Ocean, and Port Engineering Panel (COPEP)
My Teaching
I currently teach in the following courses.
CVEN 9640/9640D: Coastal Engineering
Publications
ORCID as entered in ROS
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0082-8444
