Jiarui Lei

Jiarui "Gary" Lei is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Before joining NUS in 2021, he served as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (2020–2021) and a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT (2019–2021). He holds a Ph.D. from MIT's Civil and Environmental Engineering program (2019), alongside B.S. degrees from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2014) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Mechanical Engineering, 2014).

His research focuses on environmental fluid mechanics, flow-vegetation interaction, and nature-based solutions for coastal protection. Key areas include wave attenuation over aquatic vegetation, hybrid coastal protection systems, and machine learning for underwater flow prediction. His work bridges academic contributions with practical applications in environmental sustainability and coastal community resilience.

Teaching responsibilities include courses such as CE2134 Fluid Mechanics, CE5308A/QA Coastal Processes and Protection, and CE5317B/QB Nature-based Solutions to Coastal Protection. His awards include the James B. Angell Scholar (2014) and multiple honors from the University of Michigan.

Lei’s research has explored topics like sediment accretion in seagrass meadows, turbulence effects on sediment resuspension, and kelp-based coastal protection. His interdisciplinary approach integrates experimental, analytical, and computational methods to address coastal challenges, with publications in journals like Science of The Total Environment and Journal of Fluid Mechanics.