Rate My Professor Tom Baldock

Professor Tom Baldock serves as Head of School in the School of Civil Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology at the University of Queensland. He earned his B.Eng and Ph.D. from Imperial College London, along with DIC and MIEAust credentials. His primary research specialization is coastal and ocean engineering, with key interests in swash zone hydrodynamics, beach face sediment transport, coral reef hydrodynamics and shoreline behavior, long wave generation and surf beat, extreme non-linear waves (freak waves), and storm surge and tsunami hazards. Current projects address swash zone processes, wave overtopping including tsunamis, impacts of sea level rise on coastlines, surf zone beach erosion, offshore aquaculture infrastructure, and wave energy conversion.

Professor Baldock has authored over 120 journal papers and 80 conference papers, featuring prominently in elite journals like the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and Proceedings of the Royal Society. He holds the distinction of being the most published author in Coastal Engineering over the past decade. Key publications include "A laboratory study of non-linear surface waves on water" (1996), "Long wave forcing by the breaking of random gravity waves on a beach" (2002), "Long wave generation by the shoaling and breaking of transient wave groups on a beach" (2006), and recent contributions such as "A 3D numerical and experimental parametric study of wave-induced scour around large bluff body structures" (2022, Ocean Engineering) and "Assessment and optimisation of runup formulae for beaches fronted by fringing reefs based on physical experiments" (2022, Coastal Engineering). Since 2007, he has supervised 18 PhD students, three earning Dean’s awards, and received the University of Queensland Award for Excellence in HDR Supervision in 2017. He contributes as a member of the Editorial Board for Coastal Engineering, the Engineers Australia National Committee on Coastal and Ocean Engineering, and chaired the Organising Committee for the Coasts and Ports 2017 conference in Cairns. His work involves extensive collaborations with agencies like CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, and international partners on projects including tsunami impacts, reef restoration for the Great Barrier Reef, and climate adaptation.