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Researcher and educator Nina Stark has crisscrossed the world to help coastal communities build more resilient infrastructure in the face of rising coastal hazards and climate change-related threats. Her expertise in marine geotechnics, the mechanics of seabed sediments, has taken her from the frigid and windy conditions of the Arctic to the sunny Florida coasts.  

“Since I get to do field work all over the globe, I think I’ve visited some of the most unique places in the world during my job,” said Stark, Ph.D., who joined the Geosystems Engineering program as an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering in August. CCS also extends a warm welcome to Dr. Stark as our new affiliate faculty member. 

Stark uses First-Person View (FPV) goggles to observe how infrastructure along river systems in Montana was damaged by flooding. The goggles were combined with drones to provide researchers with real-time video feed, which helped assess the level of damage while minimizing the risk associated with being in a hazardous area. (Photo credit: Kevin Franke)

One such place is the Ahr Valley in Germany, where Stark co-led a project to document how the soil beneath and around affected infrastructure moved and interacted with flood water, infrastructure and debris during extreme flooding. This work supports a growing need for infrastructure design updates and flood mitigation strategies in response to climate change.  

In addition to research, Stark finds it rewarding to provide students with accessible, experiential training that helps prepare the next generation of leaders in coastal fieldwork. In 2019, she led an undergraduate field experience program to Alaska that focused on understanding coastal erosion during extreme events and sea level rise, as well as introduced undergraduate students to research for naval applications. 

(L to R) Former graduate student Ali Albatal (PhD), Stark and former graduate student Cagdas Bilici (PhD) in Yakutat, Alaska. (Photo credit: Cagdas Bilici)

The program intentionally recruited female students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. To remove barriers, students received funding support, which enabled them to focus fully on learning and gaining experience in the field. After the program, 50 percent of participating students reported that the experience was beneficial to their careers and over 25 percent applied for a STEM graduate school program.  

“A goal of mine is to reach students who think they cannot get to where they want to be,” said Stark. 

Ph.D. student Elliot Nichols and Stark collect data to understand the performance of infrastructures, such as roads, utility lines and bridges, during flooding in the Paradise Valley, Montana, which was the result of heavy rainfall and snowmelt in 2022. (Photo credit: Brandon Quinn)

Stark’s research has three major thrusts. The first is looking at the behavior of seabed sediments with applications for coastal hazards, such as understanding seabed mechanics to engineer structures that can withstand extreme flooding and ocean forces. 

Stark also carries out research related to naval applications. For example, she studies beach trafficability, or how easily vehicles can move across the beach for various operations without getting stuck or damaging the environment. She has also led projects to develop methods for assessing the risks posed by unexploded ordnances (weapons that may still detonate) on beaches by characterizing the seabed soil in order to detect their location and predict the interaction with the seabed.  

Stark (L) and former graduate student Casey Peloquin take freefall penetrometer measurements near the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility in Duck, North Carolina. This device measures how much force is needed to push the instrument into the ground. The soil’s strength has implications for how easily vehicles can travel across the beach to respond to and manage evacuation efforts during extreme weather events. (Photo credit: Julie Paprocki)

Stark’s third area of investigation is predicting how coastal landscapes will change to support navigation, for example, how boats can move through areas where the landscape has changed from flood events.

Stark and students examine how animals that live in the sediments of the estuary floor affect the soil properties across time in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. This study is helping scientists who are studying seabed soil, which may be affected by animals’ interactions and activities, to more effectively detect, classify and find a solution for handling military munitions on the sea floor. (Photo credit: Kelly Dorgan)

“To improve the prediction of changes in seabed conditions, erosion, deposition, hazards and changes to navigation are worldwide a big challenge, in particular in a changing climate,” said Stark. “The University of Florida and the Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment have a strong reputation in coastal research, and I’m excited to expand on my interdisciplinary work and collaborate with different CCS faculty to work on projects that have an even wider range of applications.”