Rate My Professor Soroush Abolfathi

Soroush Abolfathi is Reader in Water and Environmental Engineering at the School of Engineering, University of Warwick, where he also serves as Co-Lead for Global Research Priorities in Sustainable Cities and leads the Warwick Water Research Group. He earned his BEng in Civil Engineering from 2004 to 2008, an MSc in Civil Engineering specializing in Coastal and Offshore Engineering from 2009 to 2011, and a PhD in Coastal Engineering from the University of Warwick between 2012 and 2016, funded by the Victoria Fernandes Fellowship. His PhD thesis examined nearshore mixing due to the effects of waves and currents.

Abolfathi's research focuses on pollution transport in the environment, including solutes and microplastics, and on resilient infrastructures against natural hazards, climate change, and flooding. He received the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Engineering in 2025, worth £100,000 over three years, to develop digital twins that integrate advanced modelling, machine learning, and real-time sensing data to predict responses of natural and urban systems to environmental changes, enhancing climate resilience and pollution management. He chairs the Institution of Civil Engineers Coventry and Warwickshire branch and serves on the UK Leadership Team for the International Association of Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research. Notable publications include "Biofilm growth is insufficient to retain large buoyant microplastics in constructed wetlands" (Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2026), "Hydraulic efficiency and mixing dynamics in surface flow constructed wetlands: influence of design, vegetation phenology, and climate variability" (Water Research, 2025), "Transport dynamics of microplastics within aquatic vegetation featuring realistic plant morphology" (Water Research, 2025), "A novel macroscopic numerical framework for modelling wave interactions with thin porous structures" (Ocean Engineering, 2026), and "Solute spreading enhancement by drainage-imbibition cycles in unsaturated porous media" (Water Research, 2025). Abolfathi recruits postdoctoral fellows and PhD students in fluid dynamics, numerical analysis, AI, and machine learning.