In Memoriam: Nicholas C. Kraus

Dr. Nicholas C. Kraus was a Senior Scientist at the Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) of the Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He passed away on February 3, 2011.

His research interests included nearshore and coastal inlet processes, including hydrodynamics, sediment transport, morphology change, and inlet stability. He performed research on the interactions of beaches and coastal structures and beach nourishment. Nick developed groundbreaking mathematical models of shoreline change, beach-profile change, coastal inlet morphology, barrier island breaching, and channel infilling. He also performed extensive research relating to navigation channel maintenance and dredged material movement.

Nick received a Bachelor’s degree in physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1967. He did theoretical low-temperature physics research at the University of Minnesota and was awarded a Ph.D. in physics in 1972. His Ph.D. dissertation was on “The Beliaev-Zelivinsky Boson and Particle-Vibration Coupling Approximations Applied to the Exactly Soluble Pairing Plus Monopole Models.”

Nick was a “renaissance man” with many interests. After receiving his Ph.D. and spending a year as a postdoc at the University of Minnesota, he left science to pursue martial arts studies in Japan, an avocation that he would have his whole life. After studying martial arts for four years in Japan, his life took a turn toward coastal science and engineering. Through an unusual circumstance, he was introduced to the coastal engineering pioneer, Professor Kiyoshi Horikawa of the University of Tokyo. Professor Horikawa took Nick under his wing, and from 1975 to 1984, Nick worked as a senior engineer at the multiorganizational research consortium, the Nearshore Environment Research Center (NERC) in Japan. At NERC, Nick’s training in coastal science and engineering was hands-on. He learned mainly by reading and field work, which included deploying instruments in the surf zone because he was an exceptional swimmer.

Nick began work as a Senior Scientist at the Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC) of what is now ERDC from 1984 until 1993. During this time at CERC, Nick developed the GENESIS-shoreline-change, SBEACH-beach-response-to-storms, NMLONG-longshore-current, and DYNLET-tidal-dynamics mathematical models that are used throughout the world. He also performed extensive research on measurement of sediment transport in both the surf zone and offshore locations in major experiments such as Duck 85 and SandyDuck. In 1991, he led the multiinstitutional SUPERTANK laboratory experiment on cross-shore sediment transport. The findings from the SUPERTANK experiments contributed to the development of numerical models of cross-shore transport processes and storm-induced beach changes.

From 1993 until 1996, he was Director, Conrad Blucher Institute for Surveying and Science, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, Texas.

Nick returned to ERDC in 1996 as a Senior Scientist in the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and began his leadership of ERDC’s major Coastal Inlets Research Program. During this period, he produced many classic numerical models and tools, including codeveloping the Sediment Budget Analysis System, which is pivotal software for regional sediment studies. He was the driving force in the development of the Coastal Modeling System, incorporating state-of-the-art knowledge on hydrodynamics, sediment transport, and morphological evolution. He worked with Corps District offices in major studies at Willapa Bay, Grays Harbor, Shinnecock Inlet, and Long Island.

Nick was extremely active in service to the coastal science and engineering professions through support of technical activities of professional organizations. He was chair of the Organizing Committee for both Coastal Sediments 87 and 91. He was a member of the Organizing Committee of Large-Scale Coastal Behavior 93; Coastal Dynamics 94, 05, 09; and Coastal Sediments 03. He was co-chair of the Organizing Committee of the 25th International Conference on Coastal Engineering and Coastal Sediments 07 of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He was serving as a board member for Coastal Sediments 11. He served from 1988 to 2003 as editor of Shore and Beach, the journal of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association. He had been an associate editor for the Journal of Coastal Research since 1987.

Nick received much recognition for his contributions to coastal science and engineering. He received the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association Distinguished Service Award in 1993; an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Lund, Sweden in 2001; the Morrough P. O’Brien Award from the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association in 2004; and several awards from the ERDC. He was honored at Coastal Sediments 07 for his vision that led to development of the first prototype acoustic Doppler velocimeter.

He was a member of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Western Dredging Association.

Nick authored 69 journal papers; 23 book chapters; 147 conference proceedings; 61 Corps of Engineers technical reports; and 17 university reports; and edited conference proceedings, journals, and encyclopedia articles.

Nick was a visionary who had terrific energy, enthusiasm, and a contagious can-do attitude that pervaded every project that he worked on and touched every person involved. One colleague commented, “You can send Nick an e-mail any hour of the day or night, and he responds back with an answer within five minuntes!” Professor Dick Seymour, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, noted being impressed with Nick’s energy during the SUPERTANK experiment, saying of Nick, “He demanded our presence at 7 a.m. and drove us out at 7 p.m.” Nick mentored young people and supervised seven Ph.D. dissertations and seven M.S. theses.

Nick is survived by his lovely wife, Kinu, whom he met and married in Japan.