Interested in working with us? Scroll down for more information.


Current Lab Members

Sam Ogburn

I am a freshman at Western Carolina University interning at UNCW for the summer. I am a biology major interested in conservation, science communication, and...

Russ Isobe

I am an undergrad student majoring in Oceanography, and minoring in Geology. I will be working with Dr. Bresnahan on developing a low-cost turbidity meter....

Patrick Connell

Spending the larger part of my life on the coast, I’ve developed a passion for water, both fresh and salt. I am a recent graduate...

Sophia Hill

Hello! My name is Sophia Hill and I am an undergraduate student obtaining a degree in oceanography with a minor in biology and creative writing....

Mitch Torkelson

Greetings. Some of my earliest memories are taking family vacations from my hometown in Iowa to the Atlantic Coast to visit the beach. I was...

Bentley Settin

My name is Bentley Settin and I am a junior at UNCW. I am obtaining a degree in Oceanography with a minor in Biology and...

Jessie Wynne

I will be begining my Masters of Marine Science at UNCW in the Fall of 2022. During the Summer of 2022 I am working in...

Luke Edwards

Cape Fear Community College student working at UNCW CMS for the the summer of 2022 on low cost sensor development and with the Coastal Ocean...

Liz Farquhar

I am a Marine Science Master's student in the COAST lab, working with Dr. Bresnahan. For my undergraduate, I received a BS in Environmental Science,...

Professor Phil Bresnahan

My ultimate goal is to contribute to our understanding of coasts in order to help protect them for the good of those who rely on...

Past Lab Members

Dorothy Sue Grimmer

Hi! I’m Dorothy Sue Grimmer! I am a junior studying marine biology. My DIS focuses on analyzing the images received from UNCW’s Hawkeye satellite to...

Gina Carney

Hey, guys! My name is Gina Carney, and I am a current graduate student pursuing my Master's of Science in Geoscience within the Department of...

Lucas Cooper

Hello my name is Lucas Cooper and I am an undergraduate student at UNCW studying oceanography. In my off time I love playing hockey and...

Jacob Stasiewicz

Howdy, my name is Jacob Stasiewicz. I am currently a senior in the Coastal Engineering Undergraduate program at University of North Carolina Wilmington. I am...

Drew Davey

My name is Drew Davey and I’m an undergraduate in the new Coastal Engineering program at UNCW. Growing up near the Outer Banks, I have...

Dan Portelli

My name is Daniel Portelli. I am an undergrad at UNCW obtaining my bachelors in Oceanography. I am currently doing research on remote sensor development...

Michael Tydings

My name is Michael Tydings, and I am currently an undergraduate senior doing a DIS with marine sensor development. My true passion is oceanography and...

Work with us!

We are actively seeking new undergraduate and graduate students. Potential undergraduate student researchers: please reach out to me at bresnahanp@uncw.edu to explore opportunities for a Directed Independent Study (DIS), Honors Thesis, or other ways of getting involved in COAST Lab research. Potential graduate student researchers: please take a look at the Ph.D. in Applied Coastal and Ocean Sciences, the M.S. in Marine Science, and the M.S. in Geoscience options and reach out if one of those and COAST Lab research are of interest.

The primary qualities we seek in students are curiosity and a determination to learn. While lab members use skills like coding, simple circuit design and wiring, 3D design and printing, laboratory analyses, etc., we do not require that candidates have prior experience in these. Rather, we strive to teach new skills to those who are excited to put the time and effort into learning them and applying them toward specific scientific and engineering challenges with societal relevance. If you do have such skills, they will likely be put to good use, but if you do not, you might still be a great candidate for this lab!

If you are a member of the COAST Lab, you should be featured here! As both this website and many things in our lab are built using GitHub, new lab members should practice git and GitHub-based collaboration to get their information included here. See steps below for Professor Bresnahan's recommended approach for including your information on this page:

  1. Read GitHub quickstart instructions at https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/quickstart/
  2. Fork the main repository at https://github.com/SUPScientist/supscientist.github.io following the above instructions
  3. Clone that fork to your desktop to work on it locally or work on the fork on GitHub
  4. Add a new .md file to the _posts subdirectory following the format of 2021-08-18-professorBresnahan.md but modifying both the name and the content with your information. No need to go all out (unless you want!), but please include a few key pieces of information, like where you are in your education (postdoc, undergrad student, grad student, technician, professor, etc.) and what your affiliation with the COAST Lab is (e.g., DIS, Honors student, summer researcher, etc.)
  5. If you so choose, please include a headshot or fieldwork action photo of yourself under assets/img, name it appropriately, and add its name to the frontmatter of your .md file (where mine currently says *img: Bresnahan_headshot.jpeg*)
  6. Once you are happy with your .md file content, its frontmatter, and your headshot, save everything
  7. Create a pull request into the *main* branch of the supscientist.github.io repo following the directions at https://docs.github.com/en/github/collaborating-with-pull-requests/proposing-changes-to-your-work-with-pull-requests/creating-a-pull-request-from-a-fork
  8. Wait for Professor Bresnahan or another lab member with website management access to approve or request changes to your pull request, after which you should see your info appear here!
  9. You have now contributed to a COAST Lab GitHub repo—thank you!

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