current students

Name: Nandini Seth

Research Interest: Nandini’s research focuses on environmental and coastal zone planning. She explores the issue of coastal land loss and collaborative resource governance with a case study of Plaquemines Parish (Louisiana) in her master’s thesis research. Nandini examines and assesses intergovernmental conflicts and coordination around coastal zone planning to understand the effectiveness of policy response post-Hurricane Katrina. Her research has implications for all large-scale restoration projects and on the practice of adaptive management in the coastal zone.

Expected Graduation date: FALL 2014

Hometown: Durgapur, India

Name: Jamie Heath

Research Interest: Jamie’s research focuses on environmental planning and habitat conservation. Currently, the NC SWAP does not include maps of priority conservation areas. These are critical to have so that limited conservation funds can be used to purchase the most valuable wildlife habitat. Jamie is creating a GIS computer model that will determine where the most valuable conservation areas are located. Jamie is testing the model for Beaufort, Carteret, Craven, Dare and Hyde County. She will produce maps of the most valuable conservation areas in each county, and present these maps to county planners to determine their effectiveness as conservation tools.

Expected Graduation date: SPRING 2015

Hometown: Clearwater, FL

Name: Kelsey Gregg

Research Interest: Mitigating Environmental, Economic, and Socio-political Impacts on Offshore Wind Farm Planning in North Carolina. Recently the State of NC has drastically reduced its potential wind energy development areas, greatly limiting its potential to be a major contender in the offshore wind energy market. Kelsey’s study utilizes peer review literature, BOEM NC public comment data, and publicly available Geographic Information System (GIS) layers for the key exclusion variables used to define Wind Energy Areas (WEAs). By treating variables of interest as distinct layers, Kelsey is identifying opportunities for mitigation of variables excluded from the current WEAs. By analyzing wind feasibility coupled with site-specific mitigation techniques, an alternative WEA map will be developed.   Policy-makers and planners in North Carolina can use this alternative map to mitigate inherently local variables, and it is useful in developing communication strategies that build public acceptance and successful implementation of offshore wind development.

Expected Graduation date: SPRING 2015

Hometown: Georgetown, KY

Name: Calvin Harmin

Research Interest: Calvin’s research and interests relate to applications of GIS to water resource issues and hazards, with a current focus on improving flood vulnerability analyses of the industrial pork industry (swine waste issues) and of at-risk human populations (dasymetric mapping) in Eastern North Carolina.   

Expected Graduation date: SPRING 2015

Hometown: Lexington, KY