Alexander Andriatis
I'm a postdoctoral researcher in the Environmental Dynamics Laboratory at MIT, where I study ocean turbulence and particle transport. My current work supports understanding the efficacy of marine carbon dioxide removal and the environmental impacts of deep-sea mining. My research spans observational field campaigns using novel instruments, lab studies, and numerical modeling.
I am also a passionate decarbonization advocate and enjoy thinking about solutions for the clean energy transition.
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Projects
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Marine carbon dioxide removal
Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement Field Observations
Ocean alkalinity enhancement adds alkaline minerals to seawater so that the ocean takes up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Efficient OAE requires that the particles dissolve in the mixed layer, so their size, settling velocity, and dissolution rate matter. In October 2025 we made the first field deployment of the RTSSV particle camera in Halifax Harbour to observe a commercial OAE feedstock in situ.
Mixing and Dilution in Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal
The efficiency of a carbon removal intervention, and our ability to verify it, depends on how turbulence mixes and dilutes the released water. We use a reduced-complexity one-dimensional model to identify the drivers of uncertainty in efficiency, and are developing a near-field observing system with autonomous surface vehicles to measure them.
Deep-sea sediment transport
Sediment plumes are at the heart of the environmental impacts of deep-sea mining, and predicting their spread requires the size and settling velocity of suspended particles measured in place. We are building out a gimbaled bottom lander rated to 6000 m that carries the RTSSV particle camera, an ADCP, and a CTD with turbidity sensor for benthic sediment transport science and mining monitoring.
Particle imaging
The Real-Time Size and Settling Velocity instrument images suspended particles in a settling chamber and tracks them to measure their size, shape, and settling velocity without disturbing them. I run laboratory experiments on alkaline feedstocks and deploy the instrument in the field on a gimbaled lander and as an ex-situ sampling chamber.
Upper-ocean turbulence
Langmuir turbulence is a leading-order driver of mixing in the ocean surface boundary layer. We observe the onset and evolution of Langmuir circulations with airborne infrared imaging and in situ thermistor chains, and compare their structure to high-resolution numerical models to identify strategies for improving the modeling of turbulent processes.
Turbulence at the Base of the Mixed Layer
The mixed layer deepens by entraining stratified water from below through turbulent structures a few meters in size. With a drifting thermistor chain swept through the transition layer by wave heave, we resolved shear instabilities at the base of the mixed layer during a storm and showed that Thorpe-scale entrainment estimates account for the observed deepening.
Near-inertial waves are a primary mechanism by which wind energy at the surface of the ocean reaches the interior. With an array of five drifting Wirewalker profilers, we observed the generation of near-inertial waves by a storm and found that the wave field varies on 10 km scales, with downward-propagating energy enhanced down the horizontal vorticity gradient.
Methods and tools
Data Processing and Instrument Calibration
Each instrument and observing technique has a unique set of challenges associated with turning measurements into high-quality datasets. I have developed processing routines for the FastCTD and drifting thermistor chains.
Experiment Planning and Operations
In support of research cruises using multiple freely-drifting instruments, I developed a website to track assets and forecast their positions using operational ocean velocity forecasts, accessible during bandwidth-limited shipboard operations.
Numerical simulation of the ocean is essential for studying ocean physics, mapping the state of the ocean, and predicting the future state of the ocean and climate. As an introduction to understanding numerical simulation, I solve and visualize the wave equation.