Professorship Coastal Structures for Marcel van Gent at TU Delft

The TU Delft executive board has appointed dr.ir. Marcel van Gent as professor of Coastal Structures. This addition to the Hydraulic Engineering department will further boost the cooperation between the university, Deltares and the hydraulic engineering sector.

Marcel van Gent, who also heads the Coastal Structures & Waves department at Deltares, has said his aim is to develop the necessary knowledge to tackle current issues related to hydraulic constructions. Using lab-based scientific insights, numerical modelling and data-driven techniques his focus will be on the adaptation of hydraulic structures to the impact of climate change, the design of multifunctional coastal infrastructure and the life-cycle design of hydraulic coastal constructions.

Van Gent is a TU Delft alumnus who majored in Fluid Mechanics. Following his PhD in 1995 in wave interaction with permeable coastal structures Van Gent went on to work for Deltares where he spent the next 25 years in various functions. An important part of his work takes place in the lab facilities of Deltares, particularly its Delta Flume and wave basins.

The professorship at the Hydraulic Engineering department of TU Delft’s Civil Engineering and Geoscience Faculty (CEG) was made possible thanks to the efforts of Deltares and the Vereniging van Waterbouwers (Association of Hydraulic Engineers).