Experimentalist of the Month: Joel P. Johnson

SEN is starting up a new segment with featured experimentalists!

This month:

Joel P. Johnson

Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin

Joel with first-generation smartrocks in 2009

How did you first get involved with SEN?

I first attended a SEN-organized workshop a few years ago which was excellent!

What different types of experiments have you worked with?

Working in many cases with students, I have conducted experiments on bedrock erosion, flash flood sediment transport and sorting, tsunami deposition of suspended sediments, disequilibrium gravel transport and step-pool experiments, hillslope diffusion experiments that didn't entirely work, and of course debris flow experiments with smartrocks. I am currently working with a Masters student on experiments to compare dissolution vs. abrasion of bedrock rates and erosional morphologies. 

What is a favorite memory of yours in the lab?

Building a flume-within-a-flume, modifying a shopping cart to catch sediment, and throwing my first smartrocks into experimental debris flows with Leslie Hsu.

What do you hope SEN will help the experimental community to achieve?

We as a community have been both lazy and selfish about sharing data, and that should change.  Making sharing data the expectation, and also incentivizing doing so, is important.

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Thanks for being part of SEN, Joel!

Send nominations for featured experimentalists to sedimentexp@gmail.com.