Vanesa Magar Brunner

Vanesa Magar (also known as Vanesa Magar Brunner) is a Franco-Mexican scientist who works at the Physical Oceanography Department, Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education (CICESE) in Mexico, since 2014. She runs the Geophysical and Environmental Modelling Lab.

She specializes in coastal oceanography and applied meteorology, with a focus on wind and tidal energy. She served in the Board of Directors of the Unión Geofísica Mexicana (Mexican Geophysical Union) as Secretary-General (2016-2017), Vice-President (2018-2019), and as President (2020-2021).

Magar also serves as Academic Editor of PLOS ONE (since 2011), Invited Editor of PLOS "Responding to Climate Change Channel" (2017-2020), and Review Editor of "Frontiers in Marine Science - Ocean and Coastal Processes" (since 2014).

She is a Chartered Mathematician (since 2008) and Fellow (since 2011) of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

Early life and education
Magar was born in 1971 to Roger Bernard Daniel Louis Magar Vincent (1936- ), a physicist and renewable energy specialist, and Palmira Brunner Liebshard (1940-2018), a biologist turned palaeontologist. She was educated at the Lycée Franco-Mexicain, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and at Clare College and Wolfson College, Cambridge University.

After taking her Baccalauréat in Physics, Mathematics and Technology (Bac E) at the Lycée Franco-Mexicain in Mexico City in 1989, Magar moved to France and started a General Academic Studies Degree (DEUG) in Physics, Maths, Chemistry, and Technology at the University of Nantes. But, after starting her second year at the University of Orléans, she decided to return to Mexico and started the Physics and Mathematics BSc degrees at the UNAM. While she was a student, Magar was selected by NASA to take part in a space life sciences training programme at Kennedy Space Center, to celebrate International Space Year in 1992. She graduated from UNAM in 1996.

In 1997, she obtained a certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), Cambridge University. She also did her PhD at the DAMTP, working on fluid dynamics with Tim Pedley. Together they studied the uptake of nutrients by swimming microorganisms. She graduated in 2001.

Research and publications
Magar remained at the Cambridge DAMTP between 2001 and 2002, for her postdoctoral studies. She joined Bangor University in 2002, researching the transport of sediment above rippled beds. In 2005, she won a Research Councils UK Fellowship to work at the University of Plymouth. She was appointed a lecturer in Coastal Engineering there in 2010.

In 2014, she moved to the CICESE, where she was associate professor (2014-2021), then professor (since 2021) at the Physical Oceanography Department.

She is the author of the book "Sediment Transport and Morphodynamics Modelling in Coasts and Shallow Environments", published by Taylor and Francis Press in 2020 (1st edition).

Select first-authored journal articles include:


 * Magar, Vanesa; Godínez, Victor M.; Gross, Markus; López-Mariscal, Manuel; Bermúdez-Romero, Anahí; Candela, Julio; Zamudio, Luis. (2020, January). In-Stream Energy by Tidal and Wind-Driven Currents: An Analysis for the Gulf of California. Energies, 13(5): 1095. DOI: doi.org/10.3390/en13051095
 * Magar, Vanesa; Gross, Markus; González-García, L. (2018). Offshore wind energy resource assessment under techno-economic and social-ecological constraints. Ocean & Coastal Management, 152: 77-87. DOI: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2017.10.007
 * Magar, Vanesa; Pedley, TJ. (2005). Average nutrient uptake by a self-propelled unsteady squirmer. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 539: 93-112. DOI: 10.1017/S0022112005005768
 * Magar, Vanesa; Goto, Tomonobu; Pedley, TJ. (2003). Nutrient Uptake by a Self‐Propelled Steady Squirmer. The Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics, 56(1): 65-91. DOI: 10.1093/qjmam/56.1.65

Books and book chapters as a lead/co-author include:


 * Vanesa Magar. (2020). Sediment Transport and Morphodynamics Modelling for Coasts and Shallow Environments (1st edition). CRC Press. ISBN 9780429531590
 * Vanesa Magar. (2018). Tidal Current Technologies: Brief Overview and In-Depth Coverage of the State of the Art. In (Eduardo Rincón-Mejía & Alejandro de las Heras, Eds.) Sustainable Energy Technologies (1st edition). CRC Press. ISBN 9781138034389
 * Deborah Greaves, Carlos Perez‐Collazo, Curran Crawford, Bradley Buckham, Vanesa Magar, Francisco Acuña, Sungwon Shin, Hongda Shi, Chenyu. (2018). Regional Activities. In (Deborah Greaves & Gregorio Iglesias, Eds.) Wave and Tidal Energy. Wiley & Sons. DOI: 10.1002/9781119014492.ch13

Awards and honors

 * 2008 - Named a Chartered Mathematician
 * 2011 - Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
 * 2012 - Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute

Personal life
In 2009, she married Markus S. Gross, a geoscientist who also worked at the Physical Oceanography Department, CICESE. They have one son, Damián Suré Gross-Magar (born 14 April 2010).

Sadly, her husband Markus passed away on 25 January 2022.