Member Since 2000
Ryan P. Mulligan
Professor, Queen's University
Honors and Awards

Ocean Sciences Voyager Award
Received December 2022
Citation
Prof. Ryan Mulligan has shown exceptional skill, energy, wisdom, and promise for continued leadership in the ocean sciences as a researcher, an editor, and a mentor. These attributes make him ideally suited for the Ocean Sciences Voyager Award. As a researcher, Ryan has led the way in addressing the enormous challenges in understanding the complex events linking the slow creep of sea level rise with the impact of extreme events in coastal ocean and estuarine environments. Ryan’s research, which combines field observations, lab experiments, and models, has impressive breadth for someone at his career stage, and includes hydrodynamic and geomorphic impacts of major storms, generation and evolution of landslide-initiated tsunamis, and most recently geotechnical processes affecting sediment transport. Furthermore, his results have important implications for coastal communities by indicating needs for coastal protection and infrastructure, and by improving forecasts of hazardous conditions, and already are being incorporated into management decisions. Ryan also is recognized within the ocean sciences community for his enthusiasm and generosity. As an editor, he tackled every problem with remarkable speed and courtesy. As a mentor, Ryan has motivated a diverse collection of excellent students and has shown exemplary scientific citizenship. He codeveloped the Young Coastal Scientists and Engineers Conference, which facilitates young scientists across the Americas to build networks and support systems. Ryan has advised numerous Ph.D., master’s, and undergraduate students, many of whom were women or underrepresented minorities. The skill, generosity, and energy that marked his efforts as an editor also can be seen in the enormous respect this next generation of scientists has for him. Ryan’s research and his students are branching out to entwine a network of oceanographers, geomorphologists, paleoresearchers, and natural hazards scientists and engineers. Ryan is showing us that we are not isolated communities. He is leading the next generation to expand diversity of science and culture and people. In short, Ryan is bringing people together to develop a holistic understanding of processes affecting our coasts. It is our pleasure to recognize his leadership with the 2022 Ocean Sciences Voyager Award. —Peter Brewer, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, Calif.; and Britt Raubenheimer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Mass.
Response
I am truly honored to receive the Ocean Sciences Voyager Award. Although AGU is a large organization, I have always felt a sense of belonging in this community and have strived to be a leader in ocean sciences. Thank you, Peter Brewer, former editor in chief of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, who mentored me as a journal editor. Thank you, Britt Raubenheimer, for leading big collaborative field experiments like the During Nearshore Event Experiment (DUNEX) to improve our understanding of coastal responses to storms. Thank you both for this nomination. Following the examples you have set has helped to lead me on a path of success in ocean sciences. There is a strong culture of collaboration in our nearshore processes community, starting with the large community experiments at Duck, N.C., in the 1980s and 1990s and continuing with DUNEX. These group experiments prove that working together with other scientists and engineers with different skills leads to more exciting projects and more impactful results. Building a strong network of collaborators and a strong foundation for graduate students is the key to success in coastal research. This is especially true if we can include others with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. I also believe that getting together to discuss ideas at conferences and writing clearly about science in journal articles are the most important and exciting ways of communicating results. I am glad that AGU provides excellent journals and conferences for sharing ocean sciences. There are others that I feel also deserve an award like this. Thanks to all my colleagues and collaborators for working together. I am grateful to my past and current graduate students, who are so excited to learn about coastal processes and are now the ones making waves. Thank you for honoring me with the Ocean Sciences Voyager Award. I plan to carry momentum from this forward into the future. —Ryan P. Mulligan, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ont., Canada
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Current Roles
Editor
JGR Oceans Section