Dr Bahareh Kamranzad

Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Personal statement

Dr Kamranzad is a Chancellor's Fellow and Lecturer (under the Global Talent Programme) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. She leads the "Coastal Engineering & Ocean Climate" research group and Strathclyde Centre for Doctoral Training (SCDT) in "AI-Based Ocean Forecasts for Marine Operation" mArIneCAST CDT, and contributes to the EPSRC Industrial CDT in Offshore Renewable Energy (IDCORE) and Net Zero Technologies at the National Subsea Centre (NZTC) CDT as a Supervisor.

With over 15 years of research experience in Ocean and Coastal Engineering, she specialises in investigating the impacts of climate change on ocean dynamics and coastal processes, sustainability of ocean renewable energies (wave energy, offshore wind, and hybrid energy), extreme events (marine heatwaves, extreme wind and wave climate), and coastal hazards, protection, and resilience. To advance these research interests, she employs a range of computational tools, including numerical models, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and hybrid approaches. She has been awarded Fellowship of UArctic x Lloyd’s Register Foundation.

Dr Kamranzad has secured substantial international research grants as Principal Investigator (PI), for diverse projects funded by the UK, Japan and China, and has contributed to publishing over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles predominantly in top-tier journals (SCOPUS). She currently serves as the Deputy Editor for Ocean Engineering (Elsevier, IF=5.5) and Advisory Editorial Board for Coastal Engineering (Elsevier, IF=4.5). She has delivered invited talks at various public and reputable academic platforms, globally (see public and academic talks). For her efforts in the fields of Energy, Oceanography, and Enabling & Strategic Technologies, she has been recognised among the top 2% of Scientists Globally for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2024 by Elsevier and Stanford University, as well as achieving several international awards and recognitions. She is also a 2023 Emerging Sustainability Leader awarded by the MDPI Sustainability Foundation & University of Basel. Dr Kamranzad has been appointed a member of the Advisory Panel for ClimateXChange (Scotland’s centre of expertise on climate change) by the Scottish Government. She has co-founded the International Integrated Wave Energy Research Group (IIWER) and is engaged in a variety of knowledge exchange activities in partnerships with leading industry such as SSE Renewables, Intertek Metoc, Wood PLC, Lloyd’s Register, and Wave Energy Scotland.

Before joining the University of Strathclyde, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University (acceptance rate < 4%) from 2018 to 2022. Prior to this, she worked at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University under the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellowship (acceptance rate < 10%) from 2016 to 2018. Furthermore, in 2022, she was a visiting academic at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College, London.

Dr. Kamranzad is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and has taught in the International Joint Education Programme (IJEP) at Yunnan University (China), for the course CL338: Water and Environmental Systems. She currently coordinates CL448-Individual Projects and CL516-MEng Dissertation, and serves as Module Lead and Lecturer for CL814-Coastal Engineering. She also acts as an academic adviser for CL973-Independent Study in Collaboration with Industry, and dissertation modules, including CL980/CL953/CL944/CL930/EV900-Dissertation project, and CL448-Individual Projects.

Ongoing Research Activities and Leadership

Arctic Climate and Extremes

Principal Investigator, Impact of Marine Heatwaves on Sea Ice for Arctic Navigational Safety
Principal Investigator, Arctic Wave Climate Response to Global Warming
Contributor to the “UK Arctic Ocean and Coastal Research for IPY5; Knowledge Gaps, Ambitions and Capabilities” report (Theme 4: Hazards and Resilience), led by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC)
Organising session “Resilience in a Changing Ocean: Bridging Nature-Based Approaches, Conservation Science, and Maritime Governance”, AGU-Ocean Sciences Meeting, 2025
Member, Scottish Arctic Network (ScAN)
Member, “Ice” Special Interest Group, Challenger Society for Marine Science

Marine (Hybrid) Renewable Energy

Supervisor, PhD project Hybrid Renewable Energy in a Changing Climate
Co-founder, International Integrated Wave Energy Research (IIWER) Group
Co-supervisor, IDCORE (EPSRC Industrial CDT in Offshore Renewable Energy)
Member, “Ocean Wind Waves” Special Interest Group, Challenger Society for Marine Science

AI in Ocean Modelling and Maritime Safety

Supervisor, Strathclyde Centre for Doctoral Training (SCDT) in AI-Based Ocean Forecasts for Marine Operations
Member, “Ocean Modelling” Special Interest Group, Challenger Society for Marine Science
Co-supervissor, Net Zero Technologies at the National Subsea Centre (NZTC) CDT

Coastal Resilience

Supervisor, PhD project Monitoring Coastal Systems: High-Resolution Techniques for Environmental Change Detection
Member, European Marine Board (EMB) Working Group The Dynamics of Coastal Waters under Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers: Applying Digital Twin and Similar Technologies to Obtain New Insights
Module Leader and Lecturer, CL814 – Coastal Engineering (10 credits), University of Strathclyde

Climate Change

Member, Advisory Panel, ClimateXChange (Scotland’s Centre of Expertise on Climate Change)
Collaborator, Future Coastal Ocean Climates (FLAME) community, NOC
Member, Coordinated Ocean Wave Climate Project (COWCLIP) international research group

On the Media & Public Outreach: