An interdisciplinary scientist attached to the Coastal Resilience Center is making waves with a big win.
Dr. Austin Becker was elected earlier this week to receive the Advanced Career Faculty Research and Scholarship Excellence Award at the University of Rhode Island.
“It’s a huge honor,” he humbly noted.
His legacy of work as a professor and researcher at URI Marine Affairs helped to earn him this prestigious distinction among senior social science instructors.
It was also a personal modus operandi described by Becker as “holistic” that allowed the fruits of his labor to remain ripe and relevant.
“I’ve always been interested in doing work that is […] going to make a difference on the ground today,” he conferred.
That disposition along with his unique approach toward tackling barriers to coastal resilience is bequeathing new systems proven to limit vulnerabilities.
RI-CHAMP is one of those systems.
Becker runs the Rhode Island Coastal Hazards, Analysis, Modeling, & Prediction project with the intent to improve outcomes in coastal disaster zones.
“It’s a system that allows decisionmakers to quickly understand what people are concerned about on the ground,” he explained.
Those concerns are amplified through protocols and programs developed in part by a team of modeling and mitigation experts working with Becker.
“It’s not me alone doing all this,” he insisted.
Dr. Isaac Ginis, Pam Rubinoff, and Dr. Peter Stempel were the first of many contributors described by Becker as being “instrumental” to the development of RI-CHAMP.
Those scientists are also affiliated with the CRC along with graduate student researchers that exhibit their expertise under the tutelage of Becker.
“They do a lot of the heavy lifting,” he affirmed.
RI-CHAMP is made possible with the help of funds provided by the Department of Homeland Security and issued through the CRC.