Dr. Karan Venayagamoorthy

Dr. Karan Venayagamoorthy joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University as an assistant professor in January 2008. Karan received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering (summa cum laude) and master’s degree in civil engineering (cum laude) from the University of Kwazulu-Natal (formerly known as University of Natal) in Durban, South Africa in 2000 and 2002 respectively. Karan then came to the United States to pursue his doctoral studies in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, gaining his Ph.D. in 2006 specializing in environmental fluid mechanics and hydrology. He then spent an additional year as postdoctoral research fellow at Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory at Stanford University.

Karan's primary research expertise is in the field of environmental fluid mechanics and hydraulics with an emphasis on applying numerical simulations of fluid flows to study fundamental problems in civil and environmental engineering. These fundamental problems such as pollution, floods, mixing etc., involve rivers, estuaries, lakes, coastal and open oceans and the atmosphere. It is crucial to address these problems so that we can ensure sustainability of our environmental resources. Examples of his recent research projects include modeling the effect of aquaculture wastes on coastal water quality, nonlinear internal waves in the coastal ocean, mixing and dispersion in stratified turbulent flows. Karan's work in environmental fluid mechanics has been published in prestigious journals such as the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and Physics of Fluids Journal. Karan has received numerous honors and awards such as the merit medal from the Engineering Council of South Africa for the most outstanding performance in engineering at the University of Natal in 2000, the S2A3 medal for the most outstanding MS thesis from the South African Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002 and Offshore Mechanics Scholarship from International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE) for outstanding performance at Stanford University in 2006, to mention a few.

Karan first heard about the Civil Engineering Department at Colorado State when he was an undergraduate student in South Africa from his hydraulic engineering professor, who spoke highly about the impressive water engineering research program at CSU. He has excellent impressions about the capabilities of the faculty in the Civil and Environmental Engineering program and the College of Engineering as a whole. The opportunity to carry out innovative and cutting edge interdisciplinary research in water engineering as well as wind engineering and fluid mechanics was an important factor in Karan’s decision to join CSU.

Karan is currently teaching Engineering Dynamics, a core course for civil, environmental and mechanical engineering undergraduate students. He will develop and teach a graduate level class in computational flow modeling with an emphasis on applications in hydraulic engineering, wind engineering and environmental fluid mechanics next spring. He is also in the process of setting up a high-performance computing facility to enhance the computational research capabilities in environmental fluid mechanics, water engineering and wind engineering in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.

Karan and his lovely wife (Lumina) along with their 18-month old daughter (Diya) love the scenic beauty of Colorado and hope to learn skiing.