Personal Information

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I am a postdoc at Porelab and the Njord Centre, based at The University of Oslo, Norway. My research evaluates environmental transport processes, including porous media flow, mixing in porous media, fluid-driven sediment transport, and river turbulence. I am educated in multiple disciplines, with PhD training in geomorphology and hydrology, and MSc training in statistical and condensed matter physics. This interdisciplinary background has enabled me to produce unique research that blends ideas from physics and geoscience.

Research Interests

I am currently engaged in studies of two phase flow and mixing in porous media, using a mixture of laboratory experiments, analytical models, and computational simulations. My work leans heavily on statistical physics and computer vision techniques. Since many fluid dynamical processes inherently stochastic, a portion of my work is also devoted to the fundamental study of stochastic processes with applications in environmental science.

Publications and Presentations*

  1. Pierce, K., An advection-diffusion process with proportional resetting. Physical Review E [Submitted], 2022.

  2. Pierce, K., M.A. Hassan, & R.M.L. Ferreira, Stochastic description of the bedload sediment flux, Earth Surf. Dynam. Discuss. [Submitted], 2022.

  3. Pierce, K., M.A. Hassan, & R.M.L. Ferreira, Mechanistic-stochastic description of the bedload sediment flux, AGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts 2021, EP43A-02.

  4. Pierce, K., Climate change and uncertain futures: Prediction in environmental science, UBC Postdoctoral Research Day, 2021.

  5. Pierce, K., Moragoda, N., & L. Roberge, Including wildfires in a landscape evolution model Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System, Fall Webinar Series, 2021.

  6. Pierce, K. & M.A. Hassan, Collisional Langevin approach to bed load sediment velocity distributions, EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, 2021, EGU21-8148.

  7. Pierce, K. & M.A. Hassan, Particle shape dictates critical shear stresses for sediment motion, AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2020, EP013-0007.

  8. Ferreira, R.M.L., R.F. Aleixo, A.M. Ricardo, K. Pierce, & M.A. Hassan, Turbulence in open-channel flows over mobile beds of high hydraulic conductivity, AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2020, EP003-0002.

  9. Pierce, K. & M.A. Hassan, Back to Einstein: Burial‐Induced Three‐Range Diffusion in Fluvial Sediment Transport, Geophysical Research Letters 47 (15), 2020, e2020GL087440.

  10. Pierce, K. & M.A. Hassan, Joint stochastic bedload transport and bed elevation model: Variance regulation and power law rests, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 125 (4), 2020, e2019JF005259.

  11. Pierce, K. & M.A. Hassan, Back to Einstein: how to include trapping processes in fluvial diffusion models?, AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2019, EP51B-02.

  12. Pierce, K., R.M.L. Ferreira, & M.A. Hassan, Three-dimensional resolution of bedload transport with binocular computer vision, AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2019, EP51F-2185.

*See the CV for a detailed list