Welcome to the Mississippi River Delta Transition Initiative (MissDelta)

The Mississippi Birdsfoot Delta is the most threatened coastal region in the Gulf of Mexico, and it is among the most at-risk regions globally. The Mississippi River Delta Transition Initiative (MissDelta) was developed by the Gulf Research Program of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to address the following issues and chart a future course for the Mississippi delta region.

  • Future Projection Development

  • Management Evaluation

  • Socioeconomic Resilience

  • Workforce Diversity

The MissDelta Team

  • Monica Humphrey Burr

    Assistant Professor of Environmental Science | Alcorn State University

    mnburr@alcorn.edu

    Bottomland hardwood reforestation, wetland reforestation, and wetland ecology. Undergraduate research and mentoring.

  • Robert A. Collins

    Professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy | Dillard University

    rcollins@dillard.edu

    Correlations between urban planning and health measures using census data. Analyzing census data and census tract maps.

  • Paul Kim

    Associate Profssor | Grambling State University

    kimp@gram.edi

    Biomedical sciences, inflammatory diseases, and metagenomics. Undergraduate research and mentoring.

  • Sadik Khan

    Associate Professor | Jackson State University

    sadik.khan@jsums.edu

    FEM modeling of the geo-infastructure, slope stability analysis, and remedial measure of failed slopes.

  • Brent Thoma

    Assistant Professor of Biology and Director of Marine Science | Jackson State University

    brent.p.thoma@jsums.edu

    Phylogenetic systematics, taxonomy, and natural history of marine malacostracan crustaceans. Population connectivity and dispersal is marine crustaceans, particularly in groups lacking clear dispersal mechanisms.

  • Sam Bentley

    Professor and Harrison Chair in Sedimentary Geology | Louisiana State University

    sjb@lsu.edu

    Coastal and marine sedimentology, sediment radiochemistry, fine sediment dynamics on continental shelves, bioturbation, predictive modeling of sedimentary fabric and structures.

  • Traci Birch

    Assistant Professor, School of Architecture | Associate Director, Coastal Ecosystem Design Studio | Louisiana State University

    tbirch@lsu.edu

    Coastal planning, methods for community risk reduction, community resiliance, and ecosystem management.

  • Dominique Garello

    Instructor or Record | Louisiana State University

    dgarello1@lsu.edu

  • Matthew Hiatt

    Assistant Professor | Louisiana State University

    mhiatt1@lsu.edu

    Coastal hydrology, environmental fluid dynamics, harmful algal blooms, water transport timescales in deltas and wetlands, hydrological connectivity in coastal environments, network analysis, nearshore waves.

  • Navid Jafari

    Associate Professor | Louisiana State University

    njafari@lsu.edu

    Civil and environmental engineering.

  • Giulio Mariotti

    Associate Professor | Louisiana State University

    gmariotti@lsu.edu

    Ecogeomorphology, bioecology, and processes that shape costal environments.

  • Paul Miller

    Assistant Professor | Louisiana State University

    pmiller1@lsu.edu

    Coastal meteorology and hydroclimatology.

  • Tracy Quirk

    Associate Professor | Louisiana State University

    tquirk@lsu.edu

    Wetland ecology and restoration including plant and microbial processes, nutrient and carbon cycling and accretion dynamics, human impact on wetland ecosystems, and organic matter and nutrient linkages between coastal wetlands and rivers, estuaries, and submerged aquatic ecosystems.

  • Tyrslai Menyaee’ Williams-Carter

    Assistant Dean and Assistant Professor of Mentorship, Education, and Research | Louisiana State University

    twil161@lsu.edu

    STEM projects and development for historically uderrepresented groups. Outreach for K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students.

  • Carol Wilson

    Associate Professor | Louisiana State University

    carolw@lsu.edu

    Quantifying ecophysical processes that shape deltaic and coastal wetlands, specifically how biology, geology, and water interact to create and maintain functioning landscapes.

  • New List Item

    Professor | Louisiana State University

    kxu@lsu.edu

    Coastal restoration; sediment diversion; sediment dredging and management, geological oceanography, coastal morphodynamics, observation and numerical modeling of sediment transport, sedimentary geology, coastal processes.

  • Z. George Xue

    Professor | Louisiana State University

    zxue@lsu.edu

    Oceanography

  • Jennifer "Murt" Conover

    Associate Director of Education and Outreach | LUMCON

    mconover@lumcon.edu

    Marine educator at LUMCON since 2002. Coordinator of Costal Waters Consortium's education outreach. Commissioner for Louisiana Environmental Education Commission.

  • Brian Roberts

    Executive Director and Chief Scientist | LUMCON

    broberts@lumcon.edu

    Human impacts to ecosystems and restoration efforts.

  • Jacqueline McComb

    Assistant Research Professor of Plant and Soil Science | Southern University

    jacqueline.mccomb@sus.edu

    Biogeochemistry and phytoremediation, coupled with agrotechnology to aid understanding the interrelationships between agricultural landscapes and ecosystems.

  • Scott A. Hemmerling

    Senior Research Scientist | The Water Institute of the Gulf

    shemmerling@thewaterinstitute.org

    Climate adaptation, community resilience, quantifying the social value of ecosystem restoration projects, cultural geography.

  • Mead Allison

    Professor and Chair of RCSE | Tulane University

    meadallison@tulane.edu

    Sediment dynamics of modern environments including lowland river, deltaic, wetland, estuarine, and continental shelf settings as well as examination of the late Holocene sediment record in coastal settings.

  • Soenke Dangendorf

    Assistant Professor | Tulane University

    sdangendorf1@tulane.edu

    Sea level change and variability, spatial and temporal sea level and climate reconstructions, sea-level budgets, extreme value statistics, time series modelling, design water levels, climate change, detection & attribution, proxy reconstructions.

  • Emily Farrer

    Associate Professor | Tulane University

    efarrer@tulane.edu

    Plant ecology, plant-microbe interactions, global change biology, invasive species, wetland ecology, population genetics, and botany.

  • Kelin Hu

    Research Assistant Professor | Tulane University

    khu1@tulane.edu

    Modeling of storm surge, hurricane waves, sediment transports and morphological developments in coastal and estuarine areas.

  • Barbara A. Kleiss

    Research Professor | Tulane University

    bkleiss@tulane.edu

    Water chemistry of aquatic systems, wetlands biogeochemistry, restoration of rivers and wetlands, and interdisciplinary studies of the Mississippi River and its floodplains.

  • Joshua Lewis

    Research Associate Professor | Tulane University

    jlewis9@tulane.edu

  • Ehab A. Meselhe

    Professor | Tulane University

    emeselhe@tulane.edu

    Computer modeling of coastal wetland, estuarine, and riverine systems, particularly integrating physical, ecological and social processes for inland watersheds riverine, deltaic and coastal systems.

  • Annalisa Molini

    Associate Professor | Tulane University

    amolini@tulane.edu

    Hydroclimatology; Physically-based/stochastic models for ecohydrology, hydrometeorology, land/vegetation-atmosphere interactions; Plant hydraulics; Boundary layer meteorology; Modeling of extreme hydrological and environmental processes.

  • Michelle Hewlett Sanchez

    Senior Professor of Practice | Tulane University

    sanchez@tulane.edu

    Research interests include K-12 STEM Education.

  • Simone Domingue

    Research Associate Professor | Tulane ByWater Institute

    sdomingue@tulane.edu

    Environmental sociology and critical scholar of climate adaptation.

  • Thomas Wahl

    Associate Professor | The University of Central Florida

    t.wahl@ucf.edu

    Sustainability of human-natural systems in coastal zones, coastal engineering design concepts, extreme value analysis, climate adaptation and resilience, integrated coastal vulnerability and risk assessment.

  • Robert Miller

    Assistant Professor and Assistant Director | University of Louisiana at Lafayette

    robert.miller@louisiana.edu

    FEM modeling of the geo-infrastructure, slope stability analysis, and remedial measure of failed slopes.

  • Mustafa Kemal Cambazoglu

    Assistant Professor of Ocean Science and Engineering | The University of Southern Mississippi

    kemal.cambazoglu@usm.edu

    Coastal ocean modeling, coastal engineering, coastal sediment transport, and coastal oceanography.

  • Kim de Mutsert

    Associate Professor | The University of Southern Mississippi

    kim.demutsert@usm.edu

    Fisheries ecology, marine ecology, movement ecology, and parasitology.

  • Jerry Wiggert

    Professor of Marine Science | The University of Southern Mississippi

    jerry.wiggert@usm.edu

    Coastal ocean modeling, biophysical interactions, biogeochemical modeling, and coastal oceanography

  • Courtney K. Harris

    Professor and Department Chair | Virginia Institute of Marine Science, William and Mary

    ckharris@vims.edu

    Sediment transport on continental shelves. Numerical ocean models.

  • Harish Ratnayaka

    Associate Professor | Xavier University of Louisiana

    hratnaya@xula.edu

  • Arielle C. Filostrat

    MissDelta Program Manager

    asutt24@lsu.edu