Francois Ascani

Hello, I am François and I am a physical oceanographer at the University of Hawai'i. I am finishing my PhD -my defense is a week from the time of writing-, studying the generation of deep mean currents found within a few degrees from the equator below the thermocline depth of 500 m/1500 m feet in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

I am starting also to be interested in marine ecosystems, their population dynamics, assemblage, diversity, evolution, especially at the level of the marine microbes and plankton, either from a species point of view, an individual point of view or from their genetic point of view. I would be very interested in understanding how the theories of complex systems can apply to those marine ecosystems. I have also been working recently in the understanding, validity and use of extremal principles, such as the minimum and maximum entropy production principles; there exist many applications in climate as well as in biology and I would be interested to learn more about those. If valid, their applications are far reaching and could offer an alternative way to model the turbulence in the oceans and atmosphere, the interactions in ecosystems or to reconstruct and predict past and future climate. A small project illustrating the power of such principle could be fun to do.

Overall, I have a good background in the ocean and climate dynamics, mathematics, physics and programming especially with MATLAB. I am also thrilled to discover New Mexico, its traces of the Southwestern Indian Empire, its desert and beautiful scenery. I am looking forward to meet you all and learn more about your individual personal projects.

Aloha

you can join me at fascani [at] hawaii [dot] edu