Jilian Xiong

Hi there! I’m a postdoc working with Dr. Parker MacCready. My research mainly focuses on understanding how estuarine and coastal circulations influence biological or biogeochemical processes, such as harmful algal bloom, hypoxia, and eDNA🧬. To answer “What does physics 🌊 do to biogeochemistry🐟”, I use realistic oceanographic numerical models, including LiveOcean (built based on ROMS), SCHISM, and EFDC. Besides utilizing the existent numerical model framework, I enjoy making some model developments, such as adding growth and decay processes to numerical particles to represent the life cycle of algal blooms, controlling the virtual clock ⏰ that is attached to the surface-produced particulates to record the time for them to stay in the water column or in the sediments. So far, I have experience working on two large estuarine systems, the Chesapeake Bay (east coast) and the Salish Sea (west coast).

In 2022, I got my Ph.D. from Virginia Institute of Marine Science, advised by Dr. Jian Shen. In 2018, I got my master’s degree from Nanjing University, China, advised by Dr. Ya Ping Wang. During my master’s, I worked on hydrodynamic observations obtained from a turbid coastal ocean, the southern Yellow Sea, and the adjacent intertidal regions. I love analyzing data both from observations and from model outputs. It is always fun to generate beautiful and (of course) scientific-solid figures.

Outside of research, I enjoy hiking, jogging, and road trips.