Patricio Catalan

Patricio Catalán is a Civil Engineer with a degree from  Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile (2000), an MSc in Ocean Engineering (2005) and PhD in Civil Engineering (2008) from Oregon State University, USA. He is currently Assistant Professor at the Civil Engineering Departament (Departamento de Obras Civiles), Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, where hi is also the incumbent Department Chair.

His research interests focus on nearshore processes in general, but with special emphasis on wave breaking. Key on his research is the use of remote-sensing techniques, both electro-optical and microwave, applied to the nearshore for retrieval of wave-related quantities. In addition, he is interested in tsunamis—both their near-field propagation in Chile and their effects on coastal infrastructure—and the improvement of tsunami warning systems. He has been PI and Co-PI on research grants related to a range of topics, including remote sensing and nearshore processes, and tsunami modeling.

Sample Publications

  • Rafael Almar, Rodrigo Cienfuegos, Patricio A. Catalán, F. Birrien, B. Castelle and H. Michallet
(2012) ”Nearshore Bathymetric Inversion from Video using a Fully Non-linear Boussinesq Wave Model”, Journal of Coastal Research, SI 64 (1), 20-24
  • Patricio A. Catalán, Merrick C. Haller, Rob A. Holman and William J. Plant
 (2011) ”Optical and Microwave Detection of Breaking Waves in the Surf Zone”, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 49(6),1879–1893
  • Hermann M. Fritz, Catherine Petroff , Patricio A. Catalan , Rodrigo Cienfuegos , Patricio Winckler , Nikos Kalligeris , Robert Weiss, Sergio Barrientos , Gianina Meneses , Carolina Valderas-Bermejo , Carl Ebeling, Athanassios Papadopoulos, Manuel Contreras, Rafael Almar, Juan Carlos Dominguez , Costas E. Synolakis (2011) ”Field Survey of the 27 February 2010 Chile tsunami”, PAGEOPH, 168, 1989–2010
  • Merrick C. Haller and Patricio A. Catalán (2009)
”Remote Sensing of Surf Zone Breaking Waves and Roller Dissipation”, Journal of Geophysical Research, 114: C07022