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Faculty Expertise

The following is a list of faculty at ODU who have interest in interdisciplinary climate change and sea level rise research and education.

Vinod Agarwal

Professor
  • Ph. D. University of California - Santa Barbara

Osman Akan

Professor
  • Ph. D. University of Illinois
  • Research Interests: Urban Dtormwater Management, Mathematical Modeling of Surface and Subsurface Flows

Jenifer Alonzo

Assistant Professor
  • M.F.A. Towson University
  • Research Interests: Theatre for Community Applied Theatre Visual Theatre Theatre and Science

Larry Atkinson

Professor & Eminent Scholar
  • Ph. D. Dalhousie University
  • Research Interests: climate change, sea level rise, offshore renewable energy, high frequency radar applications to ocean observing

David Basco

Professor
  • Other International Institute for Hydraulic Engineering
  • Research Interests: Process-based models of barrier island breaching. Development of a Coastal Storm Impulse scale (COSI) for the combined effects of storm surge, waves, and storm duration. The Relative Trough Froude Number (RTFN) to quantify wave breaking initiation, duration and termination in phase-resolving numerical models. The numerical modeling of three-dimensional water flows around large, submerged objects in tidal estuaries. The development of ADCP technology to distinguish breaking and broken water waves in an irregular wave train.

Joshua Behr

Research Associate Professor
  • Ph. D. University of New Orleans

David Burdige

Professor & Eminent Scholar
  • Ph. D. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University Of California - San Diego
  • Research Interests: Biogeochemistry Aquatic chemistry Geochemistry of marine sediments Organic geochemistry Chemical oceanography Mathematical modeling of geochemical processes

Greg Cutter

Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of California - Santa Cruz

Dennis Darby

Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of Wisconsin
  • Research Interests: His pioneering research in developing the Fe grain chemical fingerprinting technique has lead to the discovery of massive surges of glacial icebergs into the Arctic Ocean several times in the past corresponding to and perhaps matching in ice volume the well-documented Heinrich Events in the North Atlantic, the influence of the Arctic Oscillation on ice drift over the last 10,000 years and that it has both century-scale and millennial-scale cyclicity, and new insights into sediment entrainment and transport by sea ice in the Arctic.

Frank Day

Professor & Eminent Scholar
  • Ph. D. University Of Georgia
  • Research Interests: Plant ecology, biogeochemical cycling, ecosystems theory, wetlands ecology, ecology of coastal barrier islands, belowground ecology (root dynamics), effects of elevated atmospheric CO_2 ,global climate change

Declan De Paor

Research Professor
  • Ph. D. National University of Ireland
  • Research Interests: Geo-education esp using Virtual Field Trips, Virtual Globes, Planetarium projection development, Strain and Kinematic Analyses of Rocks

Dan Dickerson

Associate Professor
  • Ph. D. North Carolina State University
  • Research Interests: His research focuses on earth/environmental science content and pedagogical understandings, relationships between science and faith, issues of visualization and scale, and professional development in science education.

Fred Dobbs

Professor
  • Ph. D. Florida State University

Tal Ezer

Professor
  • Ph. D. Florida State University
  • Research Interests: Physical oceanography, ocean circulation, computer ocean modeling, physical-biological interaction

Holly Gaff

Assistant Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of Tennessee - Knoxville
  • Research Interests: mathematical modeling and computer simulation of infectious diseases with specific interest in tick-borne diseases

Adrian Gheorghe

Professor
  • M.B.A. Academy of Economic Studies
  • Research Interests: Currently he is working as project manager on the topic of Ubiquity of Digitalization and Risk Impact on Critical Infrastructures, with International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) - www.irgc.org, and on a project named Vulnerability Analysis (Switzerland) with the Department of Defence, Switzerland

Maura Hametz

Associate Professor
  • Ph. D. Brandeis University

Eileen Hofmann

Professor
  • Ph. D. North Carolina State University
  • Research Interests: Analysis and modeling of biological and physical interactions in marine ecosystems and descriptive physical oceanography.

Petros Katsioloudis

Assistant Professor
  • Ed.D. North Carolina State University
  • Research Interests: Materials Testing, Pedagogical Techniques, Non-conventional Learning Styles.

John Klinck

Professor
  • Ph. D. North Carolina State University

Cynthia Jones

Professor & Eminent Scholar
  • Ph. D. University Of Rhode Island
  • Research Interests: Research has covered fish from the Arctic through the temperature regions to the Antarctic. Studies include: demography based on age evaluation, stock assessment, environmental effects on habitat, otolith chemistry for assess movement and migration, recreational anglerrrrr surveys, simulation modeling and quantitative statistics. I have won numerous national research awards and authored two papers selected as Best Paper by the American Fisheries Society.

Asad Khattak

Professor
  • Ph. D. Northwestern University
  • Research Interests: Dr. Khattak has conducted and managed research (totaling three million dollars) on (a) traveler behavior, transportation network performance and the role of Intelligent Transportation Systems, (b) transportation safety and traffic operations and (c) new transportation planning methods for highways, transit, pedestrian, bicycle and air transportation systems.

Poornima Madhavan

Assistant Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of Illinois - Urbana - Champaign

Erika Marsillac

Assistant Professor
  • Ph. D. University of Toledo
  • Research Interests: Dr. Marsillac's research interests include green supply chain management, sustainable manufacturing, and international partnerships. Dr. Marsillac is an active educator and scholar whose research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, the Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management, the International Journal of Production Economics and the International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management. She is also an active reviewer for several of the top journals in the operations and supply chain fields, such as the Journal of Operations Management and the Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education.

John Mcconaugha

Associate Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of Southern California
  • Research Interests: Fisheries Oceanography Larval Distribution and Recruitment Reproduction of Marine Organisms Environmental Effects Research

George Mcleod

Gis Systems Lead Engineer
  • Ph. D. Old Dominion University

Michael Mcshane

Assistant Professor
  • Ph. D. University of Mississippi

Margaret Mulholland

Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of Maryland

Duc Nguyen

Professor
  • Ph. D. University of Iowa

Renee Olander

Associate Vice President for Regional Higher Education Centers
  • M.F.A. University of Southern Maine
  • Research Interests: Poetry pedagogy; women writers; American poetry; Zora Neale Hurston; June Jordan; Walt Whitman; Frida Kahlo; representations of women in literature; representations of violence against women in literature.

Iordanka Panayotova

Assistant Professor
  • Ph. D. University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Jesse Richman

Associate Professor
  • Ph. D. Carnegie-Mellon University
  • Research Interests: Legislative politics, voting behavior, trade policy, and intellectual property policy.

Alan Savitzky

Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of Kansas

Burton Saint John

Associate Professor
  • Ph. D. Saint Louis University

Charles Sukenik

Professor & Chair
  • Ph. D. Yale University

Glen Sussman

Professor
  • Ph. D. Washington State University
  • Research Interests: Environmental Politics, Environmental Opinion, Environmental Presidency

Donald Swift

Professor & Eminent Scholar
  • Ph. D. University Of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Cindy Tomovic

Professor
  • Ph. D. University of Michigan
  • Research Interests: organizational leadership and development, globalization, quality and organizational performance, virtual teams, organizational communications, communicating climate change, impact of technology on society

Linda Vahala

Associate Dean
  • Ph. D. Old Dominion University

Tancy Vandecar-Burdin

Associate Director
  • Ph. D. Old Dominion University

Jin Wang

Associate Professor
  • Ph. D. Ohio State University

Rich Whittecar

Associate Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of Wisconsin

Richard Zimmerman

Professor
  • Ph. D. University Of Southern California
  • Research Interests: Ecological physiology of marine photosynthesis, metabolic regulation of carbon and nutrient dynamics in marine ecosystems, radiative transfer and remote sensing of optically shallow waters, ecosystem productivity and numerical modeling.

Zubair Zubair

Professor
  • Ph. D. Indian Institute Of Technology
  • Research Interests: High performance computing, digital libraries, autonomic computing, and peer-to-peer networks

Contact

  • Larry Atkinson
  • Professor & Eminent Scholar
  • Ocean, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
  • 4111 Monarch Way, 3rd Floor
  • Norfolk, VA 23529
  • 757-683-4926
  • latkinso@odu.edu

Elizabeth Smith
Coordinator, Climate Change & Sea Level Rise Initiative
Ocean, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
4111 Monarch Way, 3rd Floor
Norfolk, VA 23529
757-683-5842
exsmith@odu.edu

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