Florida Institute of Technology
High Tech with a Human Touch
Marine and Environmental Systems
Research
Our faculty is engaged in the study of coastal structures, modeling of estuarine environment, design and construction of marine vehicles, the impact of waste disposal in the sea, the prevention and effects of coastal erosion, sediment transport, the development of marine instruments and instrumentation systems, offshore engineering, corrosion in marine environments, and navigation and control of underwater vehicles.
Individual faculty research interests are quite varied and cover a broad range of environmental problems and expertise.
Dr. Thomas Belanger's research interests include limnology and hydrology, primarily involving groundwater/surface water interactions, sediment/water interactions, and gas transfer at water surfaces.
Dr. Charles Bostater's research interests include environmental modeling, water quality instrumentation, environmental planning, geophysical fluid dynamics, estuarine particle dynamics, physical- and water-quality modeling, optical remote sensing, instrumentation of marine physical phenomena, mathematical and numerical modeling, and estuanrine and coastal physical oceanography.
Dr. Lee Harris's research interests include coastal structures, beach erosion control, artificial reefs, and inlet-harbor hydrodynamics.
Dr. Elizabeth Irlandi's research interests include landscape ecology in aquatic environments, benthic ecology, coastal resources, restorational mitigation, seagrass ecosystems, and coastal zone management.
Dr. Kevin Johnson's research interests include planktonic distribution, recruitment biology, larval ecology, and population dynamics of invertebrates with complex life cycles.
Dr. Steven Lazarus's research interests include mesoscale analysis and modeling, with a focus on complex terrain and severe weather.
Dr. Keynon Lindeman's research interests include coastal policy optimization, reef fish biology, and applied habitat management.
Dr. George Maul's research interests include oceanic circulation, physical oceanography, climatic and sea-level changes, satellite oceanography, marine meteorology, and earth system science.
Dr. Pransanta Sahoo's research interests include hydrodynamics of high-speed vessels related to resistance of high-speed craft, seakeeping, dynamics of multi-hull vessels and offshore structures.
Dr. Geoffrey Swain's research interests include corrosion, biofouling, materials, hydrographic surveying, and marine resource studies.
Dr. Eric Thosteson's research interests include marine instrumentation, water waves, coastal monitoring, and beach processes.
Dr. John Trefry's research interests include marine trace metal geochemistry, interstitial water chemistry, heavy metal pollution, hydrothermal systems, and global chemical cycles.
Dr. John Windsor's research interests include specializes in pollution trace organic analysis, mass spectrometry and hazardous/toxic substances research, environmental chemistry, primarily trace organic analysis of air, water, soil and tissues.
Dr. Stephen Wood's research interests include autonomous underwater vehicles, underwater systems; and In addition to five full-time faculty, the program can draw on several adjunct professors, such as Dr. John Sainsbury, whose interests lie in naval architecture, fishing gear design and development of artificial reef structures.
Dr. Gary Zarillo's research interests include sediment transport technology, coastal and estuarine sedimentation, barrier island, remote sensing, and tidal inlet processes.