Coastal Resilience Team

Benjamin Norris is a research oceanographer with a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and a BSc in Earth Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz. In his Ph.D. thesis, he explored the linkages between tidal currents, waves, and sediment transport in a coastal mangrove forest to understand key bio-physical feedbacks that characterize mangrove ecosystems. Professionally, Benjamin has worked both in private industry as a Hydrologist and for the United States Geological Survey as an oceanographer. His expertise spans coastal, estuarine, and riverine settings, with a focus on nearshore processes and the hydrodynamics of aquatic ecosystems. Benjamin’s research interests include the development of “green infrastructure” or nature-based solutions for mitigating coastal hazards such as flooding and erosion.

Bio coming soon…

Camila Gaido is a civil engineer with a MSc in Hydraulic Engineering from the Delft University of Technology, Netherlands (TU Delft), and a BSc degree in Civil Engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She has worked and studied at a number of other institutions including Latin American Power, the Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN), Colbun S.A., and the University of British Columbia. In her MSc thesis, she studied the behavior of low-frequency waves resonating over coral reefs. Her current work focuses on assessing the effects of reefs on flood risk reduction under climate change including reef degradation, restoration, sea-level rise, and increasing storminess.

Chris Lowrie is interested in advancing the state of climate change resilience and socioecological systems through data. His work focuses on the benefits of coastal ecosystems for flood protection, as well as other forms of geospatial hazard and climate science. He is a full stack geospatial data engineer and data scientist, with a focus on utilizing cloud platforms for scientific workflows.

Ian Costello holds an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from UC Santa Cruz, and received a BFA from Parsons, The New School for Design. His background spans visual art, game development, terrain and vegetation reconstruction, digital twins, and science communication. His MFA thesis focused on botanically accurate procedural vegetation growth in real-time game engines, persistent virtual environments, and the role of ecology in interactive media. At the Coastal Resilience Lab, he currently works on visualizing the results of numerical flooding models to better communicate coastal risk and highlight the potential of nature-based solutions.

Megan Kelso is a scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research explores how nature can be included in risk reduction development projects, industry risk assessments, and risk transfer tools, such as insurance. Megan’s background is in coastal wetland ecology and the human well-being impacts of conservation and development projects. Megan works across the environment, health, and development sectors with the aim of producing research that both informs effective conservation and improves the wellbeing of local communities. Before coming to UC Santa Cruz, Megan was a NatureNet Science Fellow at UCLA and The Nature Conservancy, studying the effectiveness of integrated conservation and development approaches, such as Payments for Ecosystem Services, Community-Based Conservation, One Health, Population Health Environment, and Sustainable Supply Chains.

Meredith McPherson is a biological oceanographer and marine scientist. She received her BS and MS from Old Dominion University working on nearshore ocean optics and seagrass physiology. She received her PhD from UC Santa Cruz, working on kelp ecology and remote sensing applications using both satellites and UAVs. Meredith was previously a Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Massachusetts Boston developing methods to map submerged kelp canopy in the Gulf of Maine using in situ ground truthing methods and hyperspectral imagery. Prior to joining the Coastal Resilience Lab, Meredith had a brief stint at USGS working as a Physical Scientist on the Coral Reef Project. Meredith applies her skills to a variety of coastal applications and ecosystems, from seagrass beds, to kelp forests and coral reefs. She views these systems within the context of climate change and aims to provide the best possible methodology and science to coastal managers and decision makers in a changing world.

Bio coming soon…

Zhengtong Yang is a coastal and ocean engineering researcher specializing in wave-current interaction modeling and high-resolution numerical simulation. He earned his Ph.D. in Coastal Engineering from National University of Singapore and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His current work focuses on coastal flooding and adaptation under climate change, including the development of advanced modeling tools to evaluate wave-driven inundation and coastal risk. Dr. Yang has published in leading journals and actively collaborates on interdisciplinary projects in ocean and coastal science.