Ana Vila Concejo

Marine Geoscientist. Linking timescales in tropical and temperate coasts. Working for women in science.

I am interested in the contemporary processes and morphodynamics of coastal systems. My main fields of research at present are:

Morphodynamics of Coral Reefs. Since 2010 we are looking into the processes that transport and accumulate sand in backreef environments. We are also investigating formation, function and evolution of spurs and grooves. Another part of this research is determining how reef morphodynamics change with changing climate and changing sea levels.

Morphodynamics of Embayed beaches. A monitoring programme including beaches in Sydney's eastern suburbs started at the end of 2015. Currently we are monitoring Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte, Coogee and Maroubra.

Morphodynamics of Low Energy Estuarine beaches. In 2016 we started monitoring estuarine beaches; so far we have a few in Botany bay, Pittwater and plan to add some in Sydney Harbour.

I am a keen fieldworker and have experience in acquiring and processing hydrodynamic, topographic and bathymetric data. I have also worked with fluorescent tracers for studying sediment transport processes. At present, I am also using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a tool to analyse recent and present data.