Kun Zhao conducted his PhD and post-doc research at Hohai University, China and the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where he was supervised by renowned experts in coastal morpho-dynamics, Prof. Giovanni Coco, and Prof. Zheng Gong. His doctoral and postdoctoral research not only achieved significant findings regarding bank collapse mechanisms, but also explored their implications for river meandering and tidal channel evolution. He won the Postdoctoral International Exchange Plan of China in 2022, and his PhD thesis was awarded the National Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award in Hydraulic Engineering, China.
During his research journal in New Zealand, he started to collaborate with Prof. Stefano Lanzoni focusing on how meandering rivers are affected by bank collapses, therefore sets the groundwork for CarbTMM. This project aims to investigate the mechanisms underlying tidal meander migration and assess its impact on coastal carbon release. The MSCA-European Postdoctoral Fellowship will be supervised by Prof. Stefano Lanzoni, a renowned expert in tidal meanders and involve two crucial secondments at Deltares, the Netherlands and Hokkaido University, Japan, respectively.