People

My name is Benjamin Tsai. I was born in Illinois, U.S. but raised in Taiwan. I attended National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, Taiwan, earning a bachelor’s degree in Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering in 2012. There, I became interested in offshore wind turbine topics in my junior year and decided to pursue further education, earning a master’s degree in 2014. My research focused primarily on marine geotechnics, specifically soil-water interactions such as wave-induced soil liquefaction. After serving as a research assistant at NCKU (2015-2016) and at the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology (2016-2017), I returned to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Coastal Engineering at the University of Delaware in 2017. My research centered on numerical modeling of nearshore hydrodynamics and its interaction with structures and sediment. I earned my Ph.D. in 2023 and subsequently received the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mendenhall Research Fellowship. Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow and Research Oceanographer at the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center. My primary research interests are still focused on hydrodynamics and sediment transport in nearshore environments, but I also undertake research on scour around structures, flow over canopy, and the linkage between fluid mechanics and geomechanics. In my free time, I enjoy cooking for my family and friends.