Biography

Malcolm L. Spaulding, professor emeritus, Ocean Engineering, University of Rhode Island, and principal, Spaulding Environmental Sciences LLC. He served for 40 years on the faculty and over a decade as department chair, before retiring in 2011. He founded Applied Science Associates Inc. in 1979 and served in various leadership and technical roles through 2014. Dr. Spaulding specializes in numerical modeling of nearshore and coastal processes of estuarine, coastal, and continental shelf regions to include hydrodynamics, waves, sediment transport, and oil and chemical spill transport and fate. He is internationally recognized for his work in developing and applying oil transport and fate models for spills, including blowouts, in both temperate and arctic waters, modeling of flooding in coastal waters. He served as senior advisor to the Ocean Special Area Management Plan(SMAP) which lead to siting of the first offshore wind farm in RI coastal waters. In 2018, he was named a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in recognition of his contributions in marine environmental modeling. Dr. Spaulding served on the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Marine Board and as liaison to the Ocean Studies Board from 1996 to 2001. He has been a member of numerous NRC committees including those on heavy oil spills, environmental studies programs to support offshore energy development, risk assessment of oil barge spills, and inland spill response.