Our Team

Our team includes personnel from the RAND Corporation, Pennsylvania State University, Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Morgan State University, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Project Staff

Lead Principal Investigator

Debra Knopman, PhD

Senior Principal Researcher, RAND Corporation

Principal Investigators

Melissa Finucane, PhD

Senior Behavioral and Social Scientist, RAND Corporation

Klaus Keller, PhD

Professor, The Pennsylvania State University

Program Managers

Krista Romita Grocholski, Ph.D.

Associate Physical Scientist, RAND Corporation

Lena Easton-Calabria

Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation

Co-Investigators

Arthur DeGaetano, Ph.D.

Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University

Tamara Dubowitz, Sc.D.

Senior Policy Researcher, RAND Corporation

Jordan Fischbach, Ph.D.

Director of Planning and Policy Research, The Water Institute of the Gulf

Benjamin Hobbs, Ph.D.

Director, Environment, Energy, Sustainability & Health Institute and Schad Professor of Environmental Management, The Johns Hopkins University

James G. Hunter, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Morgan State University

Jaime Madrigano, Sc.D.

Policy Researcher, RAND Corporation

Michelle Miro, Ph.D.

Engineer, RAND Corporation

Molly Mitchell

Marine Scientist at the Center for Coastal Resources Management, Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Robert Nicholas, Ph.D.

Research Associate, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University

David Rounce

Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University

Costa Samaras

Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Affiliated Faculty in the Energy Science, Technology and Policy Program at Carnegie Mellon University

Benjamin Zaitchik

Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

Coastal Climate Extension Specialist

Kelsey Ruckert

Coastal Climate Extension Specialist, The Pennsylvania State University

Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Researchers

Rui Shi

Doctoral student, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University

Suhail Mahmud, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral scholar at the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University

Marissa Webber

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

Courtney Cooper, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral scholar at the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University

Sanjib Sharma, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral scholar at the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University

Advisory Committee

MARISA has established an Advisory Committee comprised of academic, business, community, resource management, and agency representatives to provide feedback on research relevance across the region and advise the team with an external perspective on potential barriers and opportunities. Current members of the Advisory Committee include:

Kristin Baja

Climate Resilience Officer at Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN)

Leon Clarke

Research Director at Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland

Brian Gildemeyer

Exelon/PEPCO, Senior Emergency Preparedness Administrator NERC

Genevieve LaRouche

Head, Chesapeake Bay Field Office, US FWS Region 5

Ellen Mecray

NOAA Regional Climate Services Director-Eastern Division

Susanne Moser

Susanne Moser Research and Consulting

Lisa Ragain

Principal Water Resources Planner at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG)

Julie Reichert-Nguyen

Natural Resources Specialist and Chesapeake Bay Program Climate Resiliency Workgroup Coordinator, NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office