Staff
Rob Young - ryoung@wcu.edu
Robert S. Young is the Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines and a Professor of Coastal Geology at Western Carolina University. He received a BS degree in Geology (Phi Beta Kappa) from the College of William & Mary, and MS degree in Quaternary Studies from the University of Maine, and a PhD in Geology from Duke University where he was a James B. Duke Distinguished Doctoral Fellow. He was on the Faculty at the University of Vermont for two years prior to joining Western Carolina University. Dr. Young has approximately 100 technical publications and he serves on the Editorial Board of three international journals, including the Journal of Coastal Research. He currently oversees more than $2 Million in grant-funded research projects related to coastal science and management. Dr. Young is coastal advisor to the US National Park Service where he was a Sabbatical Fellow in 2004. He is President of Sialia Environmental, Inc— a firm that provides environmental consulting and restoration design.
Andy Coburn - acoburn@wcu.edu
Andrew S. Coburn is Associate Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University. There he provides critical policy, planning and technical support to hundreds of local, state and federal resource management agencies, universities, NGOs, the media and other stakeholder groups, and has served as a member of the NC Hazard Mitigation Planning Initiative, NC Barrier Island Planning Steering Committee, NC Coastal Stakeholders Committee, NC State Emergency Response Team and NOAA Beach Nourishment Steering Team. Mr. Coburn has completed over twenty aerial and on-the-ground post storm coastal impact assessments, and was one of the first researchers to evaluate and document the impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Ike along the Mississippi, Alabama and Texas Gulf Coast. Mr. Coburn has also provided expert testimony to the US House Subcommittee on Fisheries and Oceans, briefed US House staffers on the status of coastal engineering, served as a coastal management guide/expert for National Geographic, NBC Nightly News, CNN and the New York Times and has been interviewed, featured and/or mentioned in nearly 150 media outlets nationwide. He has a B.S. from Pennsylvania State University and a MEM from Duke University.
Holli Thompson
Adam Griffith - agriffith@wcu.edu
Adam D. Griffith is the Director of Beachcare.org through the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University. He received a BS degree in Biology from Roanoke College in 1999 was subsequently accepted to Teach for America. He taught 6th grade science in the Houston Independent School District in Texas for 3 years before becoming a kayak instructor taking him on numerous trips to the beaches of the United States, Panama, and Europe. He received his MS degree in Biology from Western Carolina University in 2008 studying the native bamboo Arundinaria gigantea.
Tristan Artman
Contributors
Orrin Pilkey - opilkey@duke.edu
Orrin H. Pilkey is a research professor, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Earth & Ocean Sciences, and Director Emeritus of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines (PSDS) within the Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. He received his BS degree in Geology at Washington State College, his MS degree in Geology at the University of Montana and his PhD degree in Geology at Florida State University. From 1962 to 1965 he was an assistant research professor with the University of Georgia Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Since 1965 he has been at Duke University with one-year breaks with the Department of Marine Science at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaquez and with the U.S. Geological Survey in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. His research career started with the study of shoreline/continental shelf sedimentation, progressed to the deep sea with emphasis on abyssal plain sediments and back to the nearshore with emphasis on coastal management. He has published more than 250 technical publications and has authored, coauthored or edited 38 books. Click here for his CV.
Sharlene Pilkey
Sharlene Pilkey has been assisting her husband, Orrin Pilkey, in his literature surveys related to his research for a number of decades. A native of Petersburg, Alaska and mother of 5, Sharlene is an educator and political and environmental activist Her experience on the Orange County, North Carolina Planning Board, Board of Adjustment and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board provides a unique context to view the policy aspects of coastal management. Currently she is researching the voluminous latest literature on global change with emphasis on the tribulations with quantitative mathematical modeling and the societal response to sea level rise.
Andrew Cooper - jag.cooper@ulster.ac.uk
Andrew S. Cooper is Chair of the Northern Ireland Coastal and Marine Forum and Course Director of the postgraduate program in Coastal Zone Management at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. His research interests include Coastal morphodynamics, coastal evolution, sea level change, and Coastal Zone Management.
Dave Bush - dbush@westga.edu
Dr. Bush is a geology professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of West Georgia. He completed his Ph.D. in 1999 at Duke University. His current research interests include coastal and multi-hazards, hurricane impacts on development shorelines, hazard mapping, risk assessment, property damage mitigation, and marine shelf storm sedimentation. He is active in the Geological Society of America serving numerous times as a member of the Annual Program Committee and a Technical Program Chair.
Joe Kelley - jtkelley@maine.edu
Dr. Joseph T. Kelley is a Professor of Marine Geology at the University of Maine where he presently chairs the Department of Earth Sciences and is a member of the Climate Change Institute. He is a native of Maine, USA and received a BA degree in Geology from Boston University in 1973, and MS and a PdD. degree in Geology from Lehigh University in 1976 and 1980, respectively. He taught for three years at the University of New Orleans where he was promoted to Associate Professor and wrote a book on the tragic erosion of that state’s coast. In 1982 he became Director of the Marine Geology Division of the Maine Geological Survey where he developed progressive regulations governing beach development. These were the first laws in the United States to preclude construction of seawalls, mining of beaches and re-construction of buildings destroyed by storms on beaches. Dr. Kelley has published almost 100 peer-reviewed papers as well as several books on coastal processes and environments. His basic scientific focus is on measuring past changes in sea-level, mapping seafloor habitats and sand and mud transport in coastal beaches and estuaries. His scientific research often includes the impact of coastal processes on humans and vice-versa.