Ms Dana Tothova

Dana is part of Project Halophyte, a collaborative initiative between UNSW Sydney and the University of the South Pacific (USP), supported by Swire Shipping, which aims to restore mangroves in Fiji and other Pacific communities. Dana focuses on the design of Mangrove-Integrated Coastal Infrastructure (MICI)—multifunctional systems that support mangrove growth while providing coastal protection, biodiversity enhancement, water quality improvement, education, and other ecosystem services. She obtained her PhD in 2023 at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, studying non-linear energy losses in reciprocating pipe flows with applications to oscillating water columns (OWC)—wave energy converters that can be used for coastal protection in addition to energy generation. During and after her PhD, she worked as a sessional teacher, including lab instruction in Fluid Dynamics and the Lab on Waves, and as a research assistant on projects involving OWC performance and optimisation as well as bubble acoustics research. Previously, long before shifting her focus toward ocean waves and mangrove research in Australia, Dana obtained a Master’s degree in Physics at the University of Comenius, Bratislava, and a PhD in Solar Physics at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen, Germany, focusing on multi-wavelength observations of waves and oscillations in the solar corona associated with solar eruptions.