Dr Iris Möller
BA (Oxon), MPhil (Swansea), PhD
Fellow
Subject: Geography
Department: Geography
Role:
College Lecturer, Geography
Director of Studies, Geography
Tutor for Graduate Students
Email: im10003@cam.ac.uk
Phone: (+44 1223 7) 68478
Profile
Iris is College Lecturer in Physical Geography, Director of Studies in Geography, and Tutor for Graduate Students in Fitzwilliam. She is also Deputy Director of the Cambridge Coastal Research Unit in the Department of Geography and Special Supervisor at Newnham College.
She is a coastal geomorphologist, interested in the dynamics of coastal landform change over a wide range of time-scales, and how these changes interact with the human use of the coast. Her research focuses on the role of coastal ecosystems in providing certain services (such as sea defence, carbon sequestration, recreation) and the sustainability of such service provision in the context of rapidly increasing coastal population density, sea level rise and climatic conditions. Her studies are largely field based and carried out in tidal, fine-grained coastal settings in temperate climatic regions (saltmarsh, mudflat, and sandflat processes), as well as sandy beach and dune settings, although her interests have expanded into tropical regions and particularly mangrove systems in recent years. She uses a wide range of environmental monitoring techniques (ground surveys, data logging, and remote sensing), laboratory experiments, advanced statistical and numerical analysis methods as part of her research, recognising the advantage of cross-disciplinary and multi-method approaches towards answering the key coastal challenges identified above.
Background
Iris studied Geography at St Hilda's College, Oxford, before moving on to complete an MPhil on post-fire vegetation recovery in Mediterranean type ecosystems. She completed her PhD at Magdalene College, Cambridge, on 'Wave attenuation over saltmarsh surfaces' before taking up a position as Numerical Modeller on the European Union PACE ('Prediction of Agregated Scale Coastal Evolution') Project at HR Wallingford Ltd. She returned to Cambridge to take over as Deputy Director of the Cambridge Coastal Research Unit on a post-doctoral research contract before joining Fitzwilliam as College Lecturer.
Specific Research Interests
Bio-physical linkages in coastal wetlands and the role (and sustainability) of such wetlands as a natural sea defence
- Decadal scale coastal evolution and non-linear coastal dynamics
- Bridging the science-policy gap (visualisation of coastal dynamics)
Teaching
Iris teaches primarily through supervisions across the three years of the Cambridge Geography Tripos. In this role, she teaches students from many of the Cambridge Colleges. Her supervisions cover topics relating to the first year Physical Geography course components, as well as the optional second and third year coastal courses. She also lectures in the Department of Geography on those courses. Iris also supervises Masters of Environmental Science and PhD students.
Selected Publications:
Möller, I., Mantilla-Contreras, J., Spencer, T., and Hayes, A. (2011). Micro-tidal coastal reed beds: Hydro-morphological insights and observations on wave transformation from the southern Baltic Sea. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 92(3), 424-436.doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2011.01.016
Feagin, RA, Irish, J.L., Möller, I, Williams, A.M.,Colon-Rivera,R.J., and Mousavi, M.E. (2010). Short communication: Engineering properties of wetland plants with application to wave attenuation. Coastal Enginering,58(3), 252-255.
Möller, I., Lendzion, J., Spencer, T., Hayes, A., and Zerbe, S. (2009) The sea-defence function of micro-tidal temperate coastal wetlands. In: Brebbia, C.A., Benassai, G., and Rodriguez, G.R. (eds) Coastal Processes. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Vol. 126, 51-62.
Feagin, RA, Lozada-Bernard, SM, Ravens, TM, Möller, I, Yeager, KM, Baird, AH. (2009). Does vegetation prevent wave erosion of salt marsh edges? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 106(25), 10109-10113.
Kroon, A., Larson, M., Möller, I., Yokoki, H., Rozynski, G., Cox, J., Larroude, P. (2008) Statistical analysis of coastal morphological data sets over seasonal to decadal time scales. Coastal Engineering, 55 (7-8), 581-600 (doi:10.1016/j.coastaleng.2007.11.006)
Brown, J.D., Spencer, T., Möller, I. (2007) Modelling storm surge flooding of an urban area with particular reference to modelling uncertainties: a case study of Canvey Island, UK. Water Resources Research, 43, doi:10.1029/2005WR004597. 1-22.
Möller, I. (2006) Quantifying saltmarsh vegetation and its effect on wave height dissipation: results from a UK East coast saltmarsh. Journal of Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Sciences, 69(3-4), 337-351.