Hurricane experts available to discuss storms, emergency preparation, disaster response, and recovery

Virginia Tech has experts available to speak on topics surrounding the 2024 hurricane season including the increase in severe storms, coastal flooding risks, flooding prediction models, disaster resilience, storm preparation, and response.

To schedule an interview, please contact mediarelations@vt.edu.

Stephanie Zick studies tropical meteorology, tropical cyclones (hurricanes), precipitation, numerical weather prediction, and model forecast verification. Her research focuses on using spatial methods to better understand tropical cyclone dynamics and structure with a particular focus on hurricane landfall. More specifically, she harnesses the intimate link between the anatomy of a hurricane and its physiology, or the physical mechanisms that fuel the storm. Zick is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography.

Manoochehr Shirzaei is an environmental security expert and associate professor of geophysics and remote sensing in the College of Science. His research interests include sea level rise, land subsidence, and flooding hazards. Shirzaei’s team at the Virginia Tech Earth Observation and Innovation Lab monitors and analyzes the environmental impact of hurricanes and creates flooding maps as well as other data to help first responders, policymakers, and the public locate the worst impact. They also are working to create a policy briefing that will be published by the United Nations by the end of this hurricane season. The lab integrates remote sensing, Earth observation data, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics. 

Robert Weiss develops computer models and uses analytics to examine the impact of coastal hazards in the past, present, and future. For the geologic past, his work attempts to translate the geologic record into insights that improve the understanding of coastal hazards today. For predicting future hazard impacts, he uses high-performance computing to better characterize the effect of climate change impacts and their uncertainty on how coastal hazards, such as tsunamis and hurricanes, will affect future coastal areas. Weiss is a professor of natural hazards in the Department of Geosciences.

Jennifer Irish studies coastal flooding and engineering solutions to minimize its impacts. Her work emphasizes the characterization of storm surge likelihood, barrier island response to coastal storms, mitigation potential of coastal forests and wetlands, and the influence of sea level rise. Irish is a professor of coastal engineering in the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Anamaria Bukvic's research is focused on coastal hazards and disasters, adaptation, resilience, and population relocation. She studies the impacts of coastal flooding on migration dynamics and displacement in coastal settings and the reasons behind the willingness to consider permanent relocation in rural and urban communities. She also studies the flood risk of older coastal populations and other socially vulnerable groups. Bukvic is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography.

Liesel Ritchie is a disaster resilience expert and professor of sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Ritchie has studied a range of disaster events, including the Exxon Valdez, BP Deepwater Horizon, and Mauritius oil spills; the Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash release; Hurricane Katrina; and earthquakes in Haiti and New Zealand. Her focus has been on the social impacts of disasters and community resilience, including conducting social impact assessments with an emphasis on technological hazards and disasters, social capital, and rural renewable resource communities.

Christopher Zobel’s research is focused on helping decision-makers improve their ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters. He particularly is interested in using analytical modeling and computer simulation to help understand the complex nature of disaster resilience. Zobel is a professor of business information technology in the Pamplin College of Business.

Dan Goerlich serves Virginia Cooperative Extension as associate director for economy, community, and food. In this role, Goerlich provides leadership to Extension’s emergency preparedness and response efforts, among other responsibilities. Extension offers valuable research-based information to support communities preparing for and recovering from disasters. Goerlich is a Virginia Tech representative on the Extension Disaster Education Network, a collaborative multistate effort by Cooperative Extension Services across the country to improve the delivery of services to citizens affected by disasters. He also serves on the advisory board for the Virginia Tech disaster resilience and risk management graduate certificate program. 

About Virginia Tech Center for Coastal Studies

Nearly half of the world’s population lives in the coastal zone and is, therefore, exposed to the impacts of terrestrial and marine processes. The Center for Coastal Studies’ mission is to inspire societally relevant solutions to the complex challenges emerging in the coastal zone. Sea level rise, urbanization, and other stressors threaten important nodes of the global economy, critical infrastructure for civil and national security, and fragile ecosystems. Human and ecosystem well-being, economic prosperity, and security are interdependent and form a complex coupled network, defining a nexus of resource limitation, opportunity, and vulnerability from which knowledge crucial for the design of sustainable solutions can emerge – the Center for Coastal Studies overarching goal.

About Virginia Cooperative Extension

Virginia Cooperative Extension is a partnership of Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments. Extension operates out of 107 offices, 11 Agricultural Research and Extension Centers, and six 4-H centers across the Commonwealth. Agents, specialists, and volunteers work to assist farmers, empower youth, guide responsible resource management, and advance the well-being of all Virginians.