Dr. Manhar Dhanak

DR. MANHAR DHANAK is currently the Chair of Florida Atlantic University’s well-known Department of Ocean Engineering and the Director of SeaTech – The Institute for Ocean and Systems Engineering at FAU, located on the university’s Dania Beach campus. FAU serves 26,000 students on its seven campuses on Florida’s east coast stretching from Fort Pierce in the north to Dania Beach in south Florida. A pending merger of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution with FAU will significantly enhance the capabilities of the joint institution in marine science and engineering. Dr Dhanak is also a professor in Ocean Engineering with research interests in ocean turbulence, vortex dynamics, computational fluid dynamics and physical oceanography. He is a graduate of the University of London from where he received his BSc and PhD degrees in 1976 and 1980 respectively. He served as a Research Fellow at Imperial College, London, as a Research Scientist at Topexpress, Cambridge, UK and as a Senior Research Associate at University of Cambridge before joining FAU.

Dr Dhanak is one of the pioneers in the use of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) as mobile platforms for oceanographic observations, including measurement of ocean turbulence. He has participated in at-sea AUV-based observational experiments in the Mediterranean and the coasts of Bermuda and Florida and has carried out research funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the National Science Foundation. He is currently a co-Principal Investigator on the new state-funded $5M Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology at FAU which is aiming to develop, in partnership with industry, academia and government, a state-of-the-art in-water infrastructure at SeaTech for testing and validating existing and future technologies for harnessing energy from ocean currents and thermal gradients for generating electricity as well as hydrogen and fresh water. Dr Dhanak is also the Principal Investigator on ONR’s National Naval Responsibility for Naval Engineers program at FAU and a co-PI on a $2M project in ONR’s Seabasing program. He has consulted on development of several outfalls off the US east coast and water intake systems for power plants in Mexico and the Philippines. He provided expert witness testimonies for a fatal air crash in the Bahamas and for wave-induced coastal damage in Baja-California. He is the author of several publications in scientific journals.

Dr Dhanak has served on the Governing Board of the Consortium of Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE) and is currently an institutional representative on the Consortium of Ocean Leadership. He has previously served on the Boards of Intelligent Systems Consortium and South Florida Ocean Measurement Center. He is currently an institutional member of the Florida COOS caucus.