Marine and Coastal Sciences

  • Bhattacharya, Debashish

    • Title: Distinguished Professor
    • Department / Research Program: Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
    • Email: bhattacharya@aesop.rutgers.edu
    • Phone: 848-932-6218
    • Detailed Profile: http://dblab.rutgers.edu/
    • Research Areas: Algal biofuels, de novo and functional genomics, strain improvement
    • Energy Research Focus: Applying modern genomics methods to discover novel strains/species for biotechnological applications, including developing and applying genetic tools and knowledge of evolution to determine the potential for particular algae as feedstock for the energy industry.

  • Brodie, Joseph

    • Title: Director of Atmospheric Research
    • Department / Research Program: Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
    • Email: jbrodie@marine.rutgers.edu
    • Detailed Profile: https://marine.rutgers.edu/main/joseph-brodie
    • Research Areas: Offshore wind energy, solar energy, grid integration
    • Energy Research Focus: Improved offshore wind resource assessment and operation through modeling and observations. Understanding wake interactions between multiple regional wind farms, and the resulting impact on power availability and grid operations.

  • Chant, Robert

    • Title: Professor
    • Department / Research Program: Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
    • Email: rchant@rutgers.edu
    • Phone: 848-932-3348
    • Detailed Profile: https://marine.rutgers.edu/main/bob-chant
    • Research Areas: Coastal and estuarine hydrodynamics. Wave energy, tidal energy, sediment transport, and ecological impacts of marine construction.
    • Energy Research Focus: Dr. Chant is a physical oceanographer who specializes in coastal and estuarine hydrodynamics using observations, theory and modeling to elucidate mixing and dispersive processes associated with wind driven, tidally driven, buoyancy driven and wave driven flows. His research also includes interdisciplinary studies of larval, contaminant and sediment transport processes. His expertise is well suited to interact with hydro-kinetic power production in riverine, estuarine or coastal ocean environments. This expertise includes characterizing hydrodynamic conditions in field sites and assessing potential environmental impacts of large-scale hydro-kinetic projects.

  • Falkowski, Paul G.

    • Title: Bennett L. Smith Chair in Business and Natural Resources; Distinguished Professor
    • Department / Research Program: Rutgers Energy Institute, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Marine and Coastal Sciences, Institute of Earth, Oceans and Atmospheric Sciences
    • Email: falko@marine.rutgers.edu
    • Phone: 848-932-2436
    • Detailed Profile: https://marine.rutgers.edu/main/paul-falkowski
    • Research Areas: Algal Biofuels, Novel Catalysts, Energy Efficiency
    • Energy Research Focus: Optimizing the production of algal feedstocks for biofuels and secondary metabolites. Designing and optimizing biologically inspired catalyses’ for hydrogen production and nitrogen fixation. Analyses of long term changes in technology that increase energy efficiency. http://ebme.marine.rutgers.edu/

    Environmental Biophysics and Molecular Ecology Laboratory

  • Glenn, Scott

    • Title: Distinguished Professor, Board of Governors Professor, Co-Director RUCOOL
    • Department / Research Program: Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Center for Ocean Observing Leadership
    • Email: glenn@marine.rutgers.edu
    • Phone: 848-932-3380
    • Detailed Profile: https://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/people/scott-glenn/
    • Research Areas: Coastal Ocean Processes, Storms Hurricanes & Typhoons, Air-Sea Interactions, Ocean-Sediment Interactions, Ocean Modeling and Forecasting, Turbulent Closure, Ocean Observing Technology Development, Marine Education
    • Energy Research Focus: Interests include the development of new autonomous ocean observing technologies, their application to scientific research in remote and extreme environments, and the demonstration of new educational paradigms. My technology development work focuses on autonomous systems that can be operated remotely as distributed networks to improve the spatial sampling of complex environments. A major scientific focus is extreme events, including storms, hurricanes and typhoons, investigating with observations and numerical models the linkages between the ocean, the atmosphere above, and the seabed below. My educational activities are designed to better prepare students to meet the challenges of a changing environment using modern observatories to explore the global ocean.

  • Kohut, Josh

    • Title: Professor & Co-Founder
    • Department / Research Program: Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Center for Ocean Observing Leadership, New Jersey Agriculture Experiment Station
    • Email: kohut@marine.rutgers.edu
    • Phone: 848-932-3496
    • Detailed Profile: https://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/people/josh-kohut/
    • Research Areas: Marine Ecological Systems, Coastal Ocean Physical Processes
    • Energy Research Focus: Physical processes in the coastal ocean are highly variable in space and time and play a critical role in coupled biological and chemical processes. From events lasting several hours to days on through inter-annual and decadal scales, the variability in the fluid itself structures marine ecological systems. My approach is to apply ocean observing technologies that now sample across these important time and space scales to better understand the dynamics of the physical ocean. Consequently, this new knowledge has relevancy to broader stakeholder communities with interests in the coastal ocean. Working through partnerships across these stakeholder groups, my research is collaborative and supports both science and application. Within the energy sector, my research considers the unique and dynamic offshore environment to best inform planning and the assessment of ecological and economic impacts of the developing offshore wind industry. Through these partnerships, we are able to frame relevant scientific hypotheses and efficiently translate the output to better management and monitoring.

  • Levitan, Orly

    • Title: Visiting Professor
    • Department / Research Program: Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry
    • Email: levitan@marine.rutgers.edu
    • Phone: 848-932-3421
    • Detailed Profile: https://orlylevitanphd.com/
    • Research Areas: biofuels, algae, plant, photosynthesis, intermediate metabolism
    • Energy Research Focus: My research addresses biological questions centered on the cycling of elements by microorganisms in relationship to contemporary environmental concerns.Recently, I have been studying the cellular allocation of photosynthetically fixed carbon, and the molecular and metabolic interactions between the central carbon and nitrogen pathways in algae. Applying my understanding of the intermediate metabolism of diatom, an algal taxon, I have managed to use genetic engineering to obtain algal strains with enhanced lipid accumulation that can be used as biofuel. I now move forward to understand what are the basic signaling mechanism in eukaryotic algal cells.

  • Miles, Travis

    • Title: Assistant Research Professor
    • Department / Research Program: Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
    • Email: tnmiles@marine.rutgers.edu
    • Phone: 848-932-3293
    • Detailed Profile: https://marine.rutgers.edu/main/travis-miles
    • Research Areas: Offshore wind, solar, and policy.
    • Energy Research Focus: Understanding the offshore wind resource and it’s variability in the Mid-Atlantic Region.