The 2024 hurricane season is underway. Texas A&M University offers a variety of subject matter experts who can discuss topics related to hurricanes — from early formation to recovery and resilience.
These experts can be contacted directly to provide perspective and insight for news stories this hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.
HOW HURRICANES FORM
John Nielsen-Gammon, Regents Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Nielsen-Gammon serves as State Climatologist and is an expert on the history of Texas hurricanes, hurricane forecasting, rainfall and flooding produced by hurricanes, and how climate change affects the impact of hurricanes.
Contact: 979-862-2248, n-g@tamu.edu
Tim Logan, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Logan is an expert in lightning behavior in severe storms and hurricanes, as well as the impacts of pollution smoke and mineral dust on clouds, severe weather, lightning and hurricanes.
Contact: 979-845-2004, tlogan52@tamu.edu
Robert Korty, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Korty is an expert on hurricanes and climate, and studies how large-scale conditions in the atmosphere and oceans influence their intensity and tracks.
Contact: 979-847-9090, korty@tamu.edu
Courtney Schumacher, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Schumacher is an expert in tropical meteorology, large mesoscale convective systems, radar meteorology and mesoscale-climate interactions.
Contact:cschu@tamu.edu
Henry Potter, Associate Professor of Oceanography, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Potter is a physical oceanographer and hurricane scientist.His expertise is in how energy exchanged across the air-sea interface in hurricanes impacts their intensity and alters the underlying ocean.
Contact: 979-845-0405, hpotter@tamu.edu
Ping Chang, Professor of Oceanography, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Chang’s expertise is in climate dynamics and climate prediction, as well as global and regional climate modeling. He leads a research group in global and regional climate modeling studies at Texas A&M and has developed research collaborations with institutions in the U.S., Asia and Europe.
Contact: 979-845-8196, ping@tamu.edu
HURRICANE DAMAGE TO INFRASTRUCTURE
Jean Louis Briaud, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College of Engineering; Director, National Geotechnical Experimentation Site
Briaud is an expert in erosion and “scour,” the remains of buildings damaged by seawater. He also is proficient in how water sweeps away materials or bridges and soil compaction in levees.
Contact: 979-845-3797, briaud@tamu.edu
Rick Mercier, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College of Engineering; Director, Offshore Technology Research Center
Mercier is an expert in off-shore drilling platforms, hurricane damage to oil rigs or any deep water off-shore structure, and oil rigs cut off from production.
Contact: 979-845-6000, rsmercier@tamu.edu
Maria Koliou, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College of Engineering; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Koliou focuses on post-disaster system functionality and community resilience, collapse assessment of structural systems and multi-hazard performance-based design of buildings and non-building structures. She leads a multi-institution interdisciplinary project that enables community resilience planners to model the physical and socioeconomic systems of a community and assess the effectiveness of measures aimed at minimizing post-disaster disruption and recovery time.
Contact: 979-845-4469, maria.koliou@tamu.edu
Stephanie Paal, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College of Engineering
Paal leverages existing knowledge and artificial intelligence to understand the performance of civil infrastructure under extreme loads during natural disasters such as hurricanes.
Contact: 979-845-4394, spaal@civil.tamu.edu
James Kaihatu, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Division Head, Environmental, Water Resources and Coastal Engineering, Texas A&M University College of Engineering
Kaihatu focuses on theory and numerical modeling of ocean surface wave generation and propagation. He creates and runs computer models for flooding of coastal petrochemical facilities due to urban runoff and hurricane-induced surges. He has done building damage surveys and high-water measurements post-hurricane.
Contact: 979-862-3511, jkaihatu@civil.tamu.edu
Arash Noshadravan, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College of Engineering
Noshadravan focuses on creating knowledge and tools to understand better the impact of natural hazards on building infrastructure by enhancing capabilities in predicting potential damage, assessing physical vulnerability before disasters, and conducting post-disaster damage assessments. This will be achieved by leveraging and analyzing post-disaster data available to the scientific community, improving the understanding and prediction of damage at the regional scale, and enhancing multi-source data fusion for AI-driven damage assessment and crowdsourcing with improved uncertainty quantification.
Contact: 979-845-2449, noshadravan@tamu.edu
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOSYSTEM EFFECTS OF HURRICANES
Yina Liu, Assistant Professor of Oceanography, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Liu is an expert in chemical oceanography and contaminant biogeochemistry and has conducted extensive post-hurricane research in Galveston Bay.
Contact: 979-862-8494, yinaliu@tamu.edu
Jessica Fitzsimmons, Associate Professor of Oceanography, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Fitzsimmons is an expert in chemical oceanography and biogeochemistry. She has conducted extensive post-hurricane research in Galveston Bay.
Contact: 979-845-5137, jessfitz@tamu.edu
Steve DiMarco, Professor of Oceanography, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences; Director, Geochemical and Environmental Research Group
DiMarco is an expert in ocean observing systems, autonomous ocean vehicles and data collection methods, as well as the short-term and long-term effects of hurricanes on environments and ecosystems, including coral reefs and coastal hypoxia.
Contact: 979-862-4168, sdimarco@tamu.edu
Jason Sylvan, Associate Professor of Oceanography, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Sylvan is an expert inbiological oceanography, microbial ecology, geomicrobiology, deep biosphere and hydrocarbon microbiology. He can discussthe short-term and long-term effects of hurricanes on environments and ecosystems, including coral reefs.
Contact:979-845-5105, jasonsylvan@tamu.edu
Kathryn Shamberger, Associate Professor of Oceanography, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences
Shamberger is an expert in chemical oceanography, ocean acidification and seawater carbonate chemistry, as well as the short-term and long-term effects of hurricanes on environments and ecosystems, including coral reefs.
Contact: 979-845-5752, katie.shamberger@tamu.edu
EVACUATION AND TRANSPORTATION
John T. Cooper, Assistant Vice President for Public Partnership and Outreach; Acting Assistant Director, Institute for Sustainable Communities; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Cooper’s areas of interest include principles of inclusive planning and plan quality. His research and outreach focuses on emergency management, disaster planning and mitigation with a primary focus on socially vulnerable populations and communities.
Contact: 979-862-6700, jcooper@arch.tamu.edu
Walter Gillis Peaco*ck, Professor of Urban Planning, Department of Landscape Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Peaco*ck’s research has focused on evacuation, restoration and long-term recovery from disasters, disaster mitigation and resilience. He is a program officer with the National Science Foundation.
Contact: 979-845-7835, peaco*ck@tamu.edu
Alexander Abuabara, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Abuabara’s research includes using geographic information science (GIS) for spatial analyses of hazard risk, urban hazards, social impacts, hurricane evacuation needs, and community-based participatory planning. One of his areas of expertise is in suicide risk assessment and prediction following disasters.
Contact: aabuabara@arch.tamu.edu
Doug Wunneburger, Instructional Professor, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Wunneburger’s primary research interests include studies of social impacts due to interactions of demographics and policies and laws. His work primarily focuses on hurricane evacuations in Gulf regions, providing expertise in developing and maintaining GIS databases and online mapping tools at the state and local level.
Contact: dwunneburger@arch.tamu.edu
David Bierling, Senior Research Scientist, Texas A&M Transportation Institute; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Bierling’s research interests include how and why people evacuate from hurricanes, linkages between natural disasters and man-made hazards, what communities can do to better manage, plan and prepare for, and recover from, emergencies and disasters, and who should be involved.
Contact: 713-613-9203, dhb@tamu.edu
Darrell Borchardt, Senior Research Engineer, Texas A&M Transportation Institute
Borchardt has over four decades of traffic operations and transportation engineering experience, including hurricane evacuation planning and surge zone clearance time estimates, and traffic operations review and transportation mobility analysis in the Houston-Galveston region for Hurricanes Rita (2015), Ike (2008) and Harvey (2017).
Contact: 713-613-9213, d-borchardt@tti.tamu.edu
Darlene Goehl, Research Engineer and Associate Agency Director, Texas A&M Transportation Institute
Goehl’s research focuses on pavement evaluation, design and maintenance. She is an expert in infrastructure condition assessment and resilient pavement design. Her research team has evaluated roadways in coastal areas of Texas after hurricanes and floods to ensure they were safe to open to the traveling public.
Contact: 979-317-2329, d-goehl@tti.tamu.edu
RECOVERY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Shannon Van Zandt, Executive Associate Dean and Professor of Urban Planning, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Van Zandt’s areas of interest include post-disaster housing recovery, social vulnerability, community resilience and hazards mitigation.
Contact: 979-458-1233, svanzandt@tamu.edu
Michelle Meyer, Director, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Meyer’s research interests include disaster recovery and mitigation, environmental sociology and community sustainability, and the interplay between environmental conditions and social vulnerability. She studies inequality and how disaster and environmental settings intersect with structural forces that maintain or transform inequality.
Contact: mmeyer@arch.tamu.edu
Sherry Bame, Professor Emerita, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Bame has a special interest in health systems planning and policy, environmental health and health-related disaster planning, particularly related to 211 call centers and unmet needs.
Contact: 979-845-8407, sbame@tamu.edu
Ivis Garcia, Associate Professor, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Garcia’s research interests include community engagement, planning in/with minority and low-income communities, housing and community development, displacement, equity and community planning for disaster recovery. After hurricanes Irma and Maria, much of her work has expanded to Puerto Rico, where she has ongoing collaborations related to the island’s recovery.
Contact: ivis.garcia@tamu.edu
Ivan Rusyn, University Professor of Toxicology, Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Rusyn is an expert on environmental toxicants, the susceptibility to toxicant-induced injury and computational toxicology. He is director of the Texas A&M Superfund Research Center, which was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to conduct environmental research projects that work toward mitigating the health and environmental consequences of exposure to hazardous chemical mixtures during disasters.
Contact: 979-458-9866, irusyn@cvm.tamu.edu
Weihsueh Chiu, Professor of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology, Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Chiu is an expert in computational and statistical approaches for understanding and predicting the human health effects of environmental chemicals, as well as estimating the variability in individual susceptibility to environmental exposures to better protect sensitive subpopulations. He is a deputy director of the Texas A&M Superfund Research Center and principal investigator of the research and geospatial sciences core. Chiu is also principal investigator of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant to build community resilience to industrial pollutant releases after hurricanes and floods.
Contact: 979-845-4106, wchiu@cvm.tamu.edu
Jason Moats, Director, USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness
Moats’ current research and community engagement work focus on emergency management decision making, operational decision making, emergency responder wellness and preparation, and emergency responder workforce development.
Contact: 979-324-9732, jbmoats@tamu.edu
Angela Clendenin, Instructional Associate Professor, Texas A&M University School of Public Health
Clendenin is the associate director of Texas A&M Health’s USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness. She has served as the public information officer for the Veterinary Emergency Team and has expertise in risk management and emergency communication.
Contact: 979-436-0613, clendenin@tamu.edu
Benika Dixon, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University School of Public Health; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Dixon’s areas of expertise are environmental and disaster epidemiology. Her research focuses on the physical and mental health implications of environmental exposures and hazards on vulnerable populations. Dixon also has extensive experience in public health emergency planning and surveillance.
Contact:benikad@tamu.edu
Marcia Montague, Clinical Assistant Professor in Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University School of Education and Human Development
Montague can provide insight on trauma and disasters, particularly among at-risk youth and students with disabilities.
Contact: Ruben Hidalgo, 979-458-0506, rhidalgo@tamu.edu
COMMUNITY RESILIENCE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Ali Mostafavi, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College of Engineering; Principal Investigator, UrbanResilience.AI Lab
Mostafavi focuses on analyzing, modeling and improving network dynamics in the nexus of humans, disasters and the built environment to foster convergence knowledge of resilient communities. He has extensively researched urban resilience to natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes and pandemics.
Contact: 979-845-4856, amostafavi@civil.tamu.edu
Nasir Gharaibeh, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University College of Engineering; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Gharaibeh focuses on infrastructure condition assessment and deterioration modeling, infrastructure lifecycle analysis, and enhancing public safety by creating data and framework for disaster mitigation efforts, specifically flash flooding, employed by local and state governmental agencies. This includes improving hazard mitigation, emergency response and capital improvement plans.
Contact: 979-845-3362, ngharaibeh@civil.tamu.edu
Galen Newman, Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning Department Head, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Newman’s interests include urban regeneration, land use science, spatial analytics, flood resilience and community/urban scaled design.
Contact: gnewman@arch.tamu.edu
Jaimie Hicks Masterson, Director, Texas Target Communities; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Masterson is the director of Texas A&M’s Texas Target Communities, a high impact service-learning program that works alongside underserved communities to plan for resilience. She is the author of a handbook that focuses on hazard mitigation strategies and tools for government officials, planners and emergency managers.
Contact: jmasterson@arch.tamu.edu
Lei Zou, Assistant Professor of Geography, Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Zou is an expert in using GIS, big data and AI to enhance disaster resilience, emergency management and environmental health. He has led interdisciplinary projects covering five themes, including using social media and crowdsourcing for smart disaster response, developing digital copies of cities for sustainable planning, modeling the interactions of human behaviors and pandemics, building CyberGIS for resilience computation and visualization, and predicting the impacts of climate change on environmental health in overburdened communities.
Contact:lzou@tamu.edu
Matt Malecha, Instructional Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Malecha’s research focuses on community resilience to natural hazards — especially the roles of plans, policies and regulations, and their interactions with underlying population and geographic characteristics of communities. He also researched hazard-induced toxics transfers following flooding in Harris County. His work encompasses many geographical areas, such as the Gulf Coast, as well as international coastal regions.
Contact: mmalecha@arch.tamu.edu
J. Carlee Purdum, Research Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Assistant Director, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Purdum’s research centers on how communities prepare for and respond to hazards and disasters, particularly in regard to vulnerable populations. Her interests include emergency management, emergency planning, and disaster preparedness and response for various hazards. She is a leading scholar studying how hazards and disasters impact prisons and incarcerated people.
Contact: 979-845-7813, jcarleepurdum@tamu.edu
Siyu Yu, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University School of Architecture; Faculty Fellow, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
Yu’s research aims to better understand relationships among the network of land use and community development plans and policies, and social and physical vulnerability to hazards and climate change. Her experience spans land use, plan integration and resilience issues in the United States, principally in the Gulf Coast region, as well as internationally in the Netherlands and Japan. Much of her research revolves around the development, application and extension of the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard evaluation methodology aimed at improving urban planning for hazards.
Contact: syu@arch.tamu.edu
Zenon Medina-Cetina, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M College of Engineering
Medina-Cetina is an expert in regional risk assessment and managing inter-dependent social, economic and environmental systems.He led the development of the first risk model for the grand ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico with contributions from stakeholders in the U.S. andMexico in academia, government, industry and community-based organizations.
Contact: 979-845-6567,zenon@tamu.edu
HURRICANE EFFECTS ON ANIMALS AND PETS
Deb Zoran, Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Zoran is an expert on displaced pets, pets relocating to unfamiliar areas, pets facing isolation and separation anxiety. She is director of the Veterinary Emergency Team (VET).
Contact: 979-845-2351, dzoran@cvm.tamu.edu
Garry Adams, Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Adams is well-versed on numerous public health issues, diseases stemming from disasters and treatment strategies for dealing with large numbers of injured or sick animals.
Contact: 979-845-5092, gadams@cvm.tamu.edu
