BATON ROUGE -- LSU is home to one of the largest groups of hurricane experts in the nation. These researchers, who are specialists in a variety of fields, are studying all aspects of the dangerous storms to create a comprehensive hurricane-research effort that will benefit the citizens of Louisiana and the entire Gulf Coast region.

The experts and the LSU departments in which they work are:

LSU Coastal Studies Institute (http://www.csi.lsu.edu ) -- Shih Ang Hsu, professor, 225-388-2962, [email protected] . Hsu is studying coastal meteorology; in particular, he examines cloud-top temperatures to determine the correlation between cloud temperature and hurricane intensity.

-- Oscar Huh, professor, 225-388-2952, [email protected] . Huh is director of LSU's Earth Scan Laboratory, a satellite-receiving site that receives weather information and provides it to the National Weather Service. The Earth Scan Lab has a Web site with animated imagery and photos at www.esl.lsu.edu. Huh also studies the effect of hurricanes on coastal erosion and build-up.

-- Gregory Stone, associate professor, 225-388-6188, [email protected] . Stone recently obtained funding for four weather buoys to be placed in the Gulf off Louisiana's coast (http://erin.csi.lsu.edu ). He has designed the devices to measure wind and wave conditions, then to process that information and transmit it via satellite to a computer in his lab, where it will be analyzed and distributed through a network to the National Weather Service, the Office of Emergency Preparedness and the public. Stone is also studying how beaches react after a hurricane, and he is director of the LSU Coastal Morphodynamics Laboratory.

-- Nan Walker, associate professor, 225-388-5331, [email protected] . Walker performs remote sensing of hurricanes and other environmental events.

LSU Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (http://www.ce.lsu.edu ) -- Marc Levitan, associate professor, 225-388-4445, [email protected] or [email protected] . Levitan is also acting director of the proposed LSU Hurricane Center (http://www.hurricane.lsu.edu ). He uses a wind tunnel to study the effects of hurricane-force winds on structures to determine what types of buildings make the best hurricane shelters and how to come up with new construction techniques. He also examines the ability of chemical plants to withstand hurricanes.

-- Emir Macari, professor, 225-334-3620, [email protected] . Macari studies rain-induced slope-stability issues and landslides.

-- John Pardue, associate professor, 225-388-8661, [email protected] . Pardue studies environmental impacts and detection of levee flaws.

-- Vijay Singh, professor, 225-388-6697, [email protected] . Singh studies the hydrology of floods.

-- Joseph Suhayda, associate professor, 225-388-8620, [email protected] . Suhayda is also director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute. Suhayda runs computer-simulation models that can show the damage that might occur to a particular city during a hurricane and what kinds of hurricane shelters might best hold up during a storm.

-- Brian Wolshon, assistant professor, 225-388-5247, [email protected] . Wolshon also works for LSU Transportation Laboratory and studies transportation engineering for hurricane evacuations.

LSU Department of Geography and Anthropology -- Jay Grymes, research associate, 225-388-6870, [email protected] . Grymes is the state climatologist, and he studies the climatology of severe weather.

-- Kam-biu Liu, professor, 225-388-6136, [email protected] . Liu studies sediment samples to determine how often major hurricanes have hit a specific coastline. This study, called paleotempestology, can provide information about the frequency of future hurricane strikes.

LSU Department of Mechanical Engineering (http://www.me.lsu.edu ) -- Dimitris Nikitopoulos, associate professor, 225-388-5903, [email protected] . Nikitopoulos studies fluid-structure interaction and wind-tunnel measurement and testing techniques.

LSU Department of Physics and Astronomy -- Erno Sajo, associate professor, 225-388-2762, [email protected] . Sajo can discuss the dispersion of hazardous materials during extreme wind events. Web site is http://www.leeric.lsu.edu .

LSU Department of Sociology -- John Beggs, associate professor, 225-388-1119, [email protected] . (See below.)

-- Jeanne Hurlbert, associate professor, 225-388-3311, [email protected] . This husband-and-wife team studies the effects of disasters, particularly hurricanes, on people. They study why people do or do not evacuate, who the victims relied upon when they had nowhere else to turn and how people react in the wake of a storm that has destroyed their property, their communities, etc. Their Web sites are http:// lapop.lsu.edu/beggs.html and http://www.lapop.lsu.edu/hurpub.html .

-- Scott Feld, professor, 225-388-1786, [email protected] . Feld can discuss household evacuation decisions.

LSU Institute for Environmental Studies -- John Pine, associate professor, 225-388-1075, [email protected] . This researcher studies the possibilities of a hazardous-materials crisis that could occur during a hurricane -- for example, how to respond if high winds or storm surge cause chemical-plant leaks or water contamination. His Web sites are at http://hurricane.lsu.edu , http://info.envs.lsu.edu and http://risk.lsu.edu .

LSU School of Landscape Architecture (http://www.cadgis.lsu.edu ) -- Dennis Abbey, associate professor, 225-388-1475, [email protected] . Abbey studies possible designs for hurricane-resistant landscapes.

-- Bruce Sharky, director and professor, 225-388-1441, [email protected] . Sharky studies designs for hazard-resistant communities. Abbey and Sharky study hurricane planning and effects of wind on plants and trees.

LSU School of Veterinary Medicine (http://www.vetmed.lsu.edu ) -- Martin Hugh-Jones, professor of epidemiology, 225-346-3335, [email protected] . He studies the epidemiology of floods.

Louisiana Geological Survey (http://www.lgs.lsu.edu ) -- Ivor Van Heerden, associate professor, 225-388-5974, [email protected] . Van Heerden performs flood and storm-surge modeling and is also deputy director of the proposed LSU Hurricane Center.

Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute -- Vibhas Aravamuthan, associate director, 225-388-6027 or 225-388-6826, [email protected] . Aravamuthan is also director of the Natural Systems Engineering Laboratory at LSU and studies flood modeling.

-- Nedra Korevec, research associate, 225-388-6027, [email protected] . Nedra is Web master for the LWRRI Web site: http://www.lwrri.lsu.edu . Site includes images that can be downloaded for the media.

Southern Regional Climate Center (http://www.srcc.lsu.edu ) --Kevin Robbins, director, 225-388-6870 or 225-388-1063, [email protected] . Robbins, also an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology, can discuss the methods by which LSU receives weather data more quickly than the National Weather Service. The data is also stored at the climate center.

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