Carrie Reinhardt Adams, Ph.D., associate professor in the UF Environmental Horticulture Department, is a restoration and plant ecologist who focuses on establishment of native plant communities in wetlands, with research in submerged aquatic vegetation and salt marsh dominants for restoration and living shorelines.
Areas of expertise:
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- Native plant establishment for restoration and conservation
- Management and restoration of plant-invaded wetlands
- Living shoreline implementation
Peter Adams, Ph.D., associate professor in geological sciences, researches how to improve our understanding of the relationships between surface processes and land-form evolution over time scales that range from a few seconds to millions of years.
Areas of expertise:
- Geomorphology
- Coastal processes
- Climate change
Professor Shirley Baker, Ph.D., in the School of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences, has extensive experience in marine biology, with a focus on invertebrate fisheries, shellfish aquaculture and climate change.
Areas of expertise:
- Extension
- Invertebrate zoology
- Invasive species
- Shellfish aquaculture
Donald Behringer, professor in the UF School of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences, is a marine ecologist with cross-cutting research interests in disease, fishery, restoration and invasion ecology.
Areas of expertise:
- Role of disease in driving the ecology and evolution of marine populations and communities
- Effect of disease on biological invasion dynamics
- Interactions between disease and decapod crustacean fisheries
- The overarching effect of human activities and climate change on all of the above
Joe Bisesi, associate professor in the UF Department of Environmental and Global Health, is an environmental toxicologist who examines the effects of waterborne contaminants on the health of humans and aquatic organisms.
Areas of expertise:
- Aquatic animal exposure studies
- Molecular/omics techniques to measure sub-cellular toxicity
- Water quality including chemical analysis in water
As an assistant professor in the School of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences, Anna Braswell, Ph.D., focuses on the formation, persistence, restoration and degradation of coastal ecosystems. Linking ecological, geomorphic and demographic data, her interdisciplinary research seeks to understand coastal ecosystems within a macroscale ecology framework.
Areas of expertise:
- Coastal wetland science, including ecology and geomorphology
- Ecosystem restoration science and application, including salt marshes and oyster reefs
- Geospatial approaches including analysis of big data and remote sensing
- Educating and facilitating adaptation to sea level rise and coastal flooding through extension work with Florida Sea Grant
Jules Bruck, Ph.D., director of the UF School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, researches coastal resilience, green infrastructure and public perception of sustainable landscape practices. Bruck also co-founded the Coastal Resilience Design Studio, which hopes to drive policy to benefit coastal communities through more sustainable land use, planning and education.
Areas of expertise:
- Coastal community resilience
- Ecosystem services
- Adaptation planning
Alberto Canestrelli, Ph.D., assistant professor in coastal engineering, researches eco-morphological trends and water quality in coastal environments, particularly estuaries, tidal channels and salt marshes. He develops and uses numerical models, and employs acoustic instruments and drones for high-resolution data collection. This integrated approach advances understanding of coastal environments, supporting effective management and restoration strategies.
Areas of expertise:
- Eco-morphology of salt marshes
- Numerical modeling
- Long term morphodynamic trends of estuaries
Jeff Carney, director of the Florida Institute for Built Environmental Resilience (FIBER) and associate professor in the UF School of Architecture, works at the interface of housing, neighborhoods and ecosystems with a focus on climate change adaptation.
Areas of expertise:
- Housing and community design
- Co-design and community engagement processes
- Development of digital tools for community design process
Ray Carthy, Ph.D., assistant unit leader at the Florida Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, researches the ecology of threatened and endangered species. His research interests involve reproductive ecology and physiology of coastal and wetland herpetofauna, with a focus on marine and freshwater turtles.
Areas of expertise:
- Coastal and wetland ecology
- Foraging ecology and physiological responses of marine turtles
- Conservation and management of endangered and threatened species
Nancy Denslow, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Physiological Sciences and in the Center for Environmental and Human Toxicology at the University of Florida, has pioneered the use of molecular technologies for environmental toxicology especially focusing on high throughput in vitro assays, biomarker development and toxicogenomics approaches for evaluating contaminants of emerging concern.
Areas of expertise:
- Toxicogenomics
- Endocrine disruptors
- Fish toxicology
Professor Z. Hugh Fan, Ph.D., UF Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, is a mechanical and biomedical engineer who specializes in microfluidics and sensing system development, such as water quality monitoring on the spot.
Areas of expertise:
- Microfluidics
- Biomedical MicroelectroMechanical Systems (BioMEMS)
- Sensors
- Pathogen Detection
Yi Guo, Ph.D., associate professor in UF Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, generates real-world evidence to support healthcare decision-making for disease prevention and control.
Areas of expertise:
- Predictive modeling using real-world data
- Randomized clinical trial design and analysis
- Measuring, validating, and analyzing patient-reported outcomes
Marc Hensel, Ph.D., research assistant professor at UF/IFAS Nature Coast Biological Station, is a coastal ecologist studying the effects of global change on the foundation species and keystone interactions that power biodiversity and climate resilience. He uses experiments and quantitative synthesis to connect patterns and processes across scales in marshes, seagrasses, mangroves, oyster reefs and coral reefs.…
Tom Hoctor, Ph.D., director for the Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, is an expert on GIS applications for identifying conservation priorities and implementation actions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Areas of expertise:
- Biodiversity reserve design and conservation
- Green infrastructure and ecosystem services
- GIS land use planning applications
- Conservation and land use policy
Vanessa Hull, Ph.D., associate professor in the UF Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, is an interdisciplinary ecologist who specializes in research on coupled human and natural systems, telecoupling, wildlife ecology and protected areas. She is interested in spatial planning to address both biodiversity conservation and human well-being in the Gulf region.
Areas of expertise:
- Coupled human and natural systems
- Protected areas
- Telecoupling
- Wildlife ecology
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Peter Ifju, Ph.D., has been on the forefront of uncrewed systems development and focuses that expertise on natural resource applications such as autonomous water sampling, bathymetry and wildfire management and mitigation.
Areas of expertise:
- Bathymetry
- Drones
- Autonomous systems
- Water sampling
Md Jahidul Islam, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UF Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, is interested in the design and development of robust perception modules that enable autonomous robots and intelligent machines to accurately interpret their surroundings in real-time.
Areas of expertise:
- Robot perception
- Machine vision
- Underwater robotics
- Autonomous explorations
Geological Sciences Professor John Jaeger, Ph.D., is a coastal marine geologist studying how climate change impacts terrestrial and marine environments, with a focus on how these changes are recorded and preserved in sediments that accumulate along the margins of continents.
Areas of expertise:
- Marine Sedimentology
- Glacial and Glacimarine Geology
- Continental Margin Stratigraphy
- Estuarine and Coastal Sedimentology
Myoseon Jang, associate professor in environmental engineering sciences, focuses on characterizing the natural and anthropogenic chemical species involved in atmospheric processes, modeling their kinetics and thermodynamics, and improving the understanding of impacts of air pollutants on health and climate forcing.
Areas of expertise:
- Modeling the atmospheric processes of air pollutants
- Characterizations of airborne particulate matter and gases
- Atmospheric aging of airborne particles and gases in a large outdoor photochemical smog chamber
- Health effects of airborne particles
Zhe Jiang, Ph.D., associate professor in UF’s Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering researchers data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on spatiotemporal data mining for interdisciplinary applications in Earth sciences (hydrology, natural disaster, coastal hazards), agriculture, transportation, health and medicine.
Areas of expertise:
- Artificial intelligence
- Spatiotemporal Data
- Interdisciplinary Applications
Environmental Engineering Sciences Assistant Professor Sungyoon Jung, Ph.D., specializes in pollutant collection and analysis using advanced analytical instruments. She also has expertise in synthesizing and characterizing nanomaterials for pollutant removal.
Areas of expertise:
- Collection and analysis of pollutants
- Nanotechnology
- Instrumentation
Antar Jutla, Ph.D., associate professor in environmental engineering sciences, is a hydrologist who specializes in issues of water, human health and pathogens.
Areas of expertise:
- Water and health
Biology Professor Jimmy Liao, Ph.D., is a biomechanist and neuroscientist who specializes in aquatic swimming and feeding biomechanics, sensory physiology, biological fluid dynamics and movement ecology of fishes.
Areas of expertise:
- Sensory neuroscience
- Biological fluid dynamics
- Fish biomechanics, physiology and energetics
Assistant Professor Julie Meyer, Ph.D., in UF’s Soil, Water and Ecosystem Services Department, is a marine microbial ecologist who specializes in harnessing the power of microbiomes for marine ecosystem restoration. Her lab investigates the relationships between microbes and their hosts to determine the interactions that result in healthy keystone species such as seagrass and corals.
Areas of expertise:
- Microbial ecology
- Probiotics
- Genomics
Elise Morrison, Ph.D., assistant professor in environmental engineering sciences, researches nutrient and organic matter cycling in wetland and estuarine systems, with an emphasis on microbial processes and chemical biomarkers.
Areas of expertise:
- Microbial ecology
- Probiotics
Patrick Musgrave, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UF Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, is a structural dynamist who specializes in flexible structures that sense, process and interact with hydrodynamic environments, such as fish robotics and ocean wave energy harvesters.
Areas of expertise:
- Sensing, processing, actuation and control of flexible structures
- Designing and understanding soft swimming robotics
- Harnessing the embodied computation of flexible structures to directly sense and respond to the environment
- Developing flexible ocean wave energy converters
Chamteut Oh, Ph.D., assistant professor in environmental engineering sciences, specializes in water quality. His expertise lies in quantifying genomic materials at low prevalence in the environment, which he applies to assess pathogen infection risks and conduct environmental DNA/RNA surveillance.
Areas of expertise:
- Water quality
- Infectious diseases
- Environmental genomic surveillance
- Disinfection technologies
Todd Osborne, Ph.D., associate professor in the UF Department of Soil, Water and Ecosystem Sciences, is an estuarine biogeochemist specializing in carbon and nutrient processes governing ecosystem function and mechanisms that thse processes may be leveraged for ecosystem restoration.
Areas of expertise:
- Estuarine biogeochemistry
- Water chemistry/ quality
- Shellfish ecology and restoration
- Seagrass ecology and restoration
Civil and coastal engineering Associate Professor Brian Phillips, Ph.D., is a structural engineer who studies wind and earthquake impacts on civil infrastructure through field and laboratory work.
Areas of expertise:
- Structural engineering
- Wind engineering
- Earthquake engineering
- Experimental methods
Coastal ecologist Laura Reynolds, Ph.D., associate professor in the UF Department of Soil, Water and Ecosystem Sciences, focuses on (1) understanding trajectories of biodiversity in local ecosystems (e.g. freshwater lakes and seagrass meadows), (2) understanding the theoretical links between biodiversity and function, and (3) demonstrating how we can use this understanding to better manage and restore aquatic systems
Areas of expertise:
- Seagrass ecology
- Ecosystem restoration
- Population genetics
- Ecosystem ecology
Karla Saldana Ochoa, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UF School of Architecture, focuses on developing projects that leverage the interaction between artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence applied to boost creativity in architectural design and create tools to analyze big data of urban phenomena.
Areas of expertise:
- AI
- Architectural design
- Big data
- Digital twins
Industrial and systems engineering Associate Professor Jorge Sefair’s, Ph.D. interests include network optimization, multistage optimization and integer programming. In particular, he is motivated by applications of operations research in environmental planning, public policy and service systems.
Areas of expertise:
- Network optimization
- Combinatorial optimization
- Integer programming
- Interdiction games
Geology Assistant Professor Katherine Serafin, Ph.D., is a coastal geographer whose research focuses on understanding the drivers and impacts of extreme coastal events, compound flooding hazards, and flood risk management in a changing climate to develop actionable insights for resilience planning.
Areas of expertise:
- Compound flooding
- Coastal hazards
- Extreme value theory
- Coastal sea level
Civil and coastal engineering Professor Alex Sheremet, Ph.D., researches ocean waves and wave-sediment interaction such as sediment transport, sediment liquefaction and mine burial under storm waves. He also studies large scale wave processes such as seiches and meteotsunami dynamics.
Areas of expertise:
- Field experiments
- Numerical and theoretical modeling of physical processes of the coastal ocean
Ashley Smyth, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UF Department of Soil, Water and Ecosystem Sciences, is biogeochemist who studies how human activities affect how nutrients, such as nitrogen, carbon and phosphorous, cycle in coastal ecosystems.
Areas of expertise:
- Nitrogen biogeochemistry
- Restoration aquaculture
- Coastal ecology
Arnoldo Valle-Levinson, Ph.D., professor in civil and coastal engineering, specializes in estuarine hydrodynamics, saltwater intrusion, compound flooding, interannual variability of sea level and climate.
Areas of expertise:
- Estuarine hydrodynamics
- Saltwater intrusion
- Compound flooding
- Interannual variability of sea level and climate
Biology Assistant Professor Hannah Vander Zanden, Ph.D., researches animal movement and trophic ecology through the lens of stable isotope analysis.
Areas of expertise:
- Tracking animal migration, both in terrestrial and marine environments with the use of stable isotopes
- Sea turtle biology and conservation
- Characterizing the geospatial- and population-level impacts of anthropogenic impacts on animal communities
Michael Volk, associate Director of the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, focuses on applied research on land use, regional conservation planning and urban green infrastructure; the impacts of sea level rise on natural resources and coastal communities; and climate change adaptation strategies and information needs for landscape architecture students and professionals.
Areas of expertise:
- Urban green infrastructure
- Climate-wise landscapes
Ben Wilkinson, Ph.D., associate professor in the UF School of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences, specializes in the collection and processing of data using geospatial sensors, with emphasis on airborne and terrestrial photogrammetry, LiDAR and unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
Areas of expertise:
- Photogrammetry
- LiDAR
- UAS
Xiao Yu, Ph.D., associate professor in civil and coastal engineering, specializes in nearshore hydrodynamics, coastal modeling and sediment transport processes.
Areas of expertise:
- Nearshore processes
- Turbulent mixing and transport processes
- Sediment transport
Xilei Zhao, Ph.D., assistant professor in civil and coastal engineering, focuses on developing and applying data and computational science methods to tackle challenging problems in transportation and resilience.
Areas of expertise:
- Data analytics and travel behavior modeling for innovative mobility (e.g., ridesourcing and micromobility)
- Modeling and planning evacuation
- Quantifying resilience for critical infrastructure systems, societal systems and communities