Dr. Laura J. Moore

Professor of Coastal Geomorphology and Associate Chair for Research

Director, Collaboratory for Coastal Adaptation over Space and Time – C-CoAST

Director, Coastal Environmental Change Lab

Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Department;
Environment, Ecology and Energy Program; UNC at Chapel Hill

Laura J. Moore is Professor of Coastal Geomorphology and Director of the Coastal Environmental Change Lab in the Department of Geological Sciences and the Environment Ecology and Energy Program at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also serves as the Director of the Collaboratory for Coastal Adaptation over Space and Time (C-CoAST).

Dr. Moore’s interdisciplinary research program in coastal geomorphology focuses on the response of low-lying coastal environments to climate change. Her recent and ongoing work relies on the merging of observational and numerical approaches to investigate barrier island response to sea level rise; coastal foredune dynamics and the role of dunes in island evolution; couplings among barrier islands, back-barrier marshes and bays; large-scale coastline response to changing wave climate; feedbacks and interactions between human activities and natural processes that affect coastline evolution; and novel arts-based approaches to climate change education. Her research involves collaboration with ecologists, geomorphologists, economists, engineers, hydrologists, oceanographers, education researchers, behavioral scientists, computer scientists and dramatic artists, as well as coastal stakeholders.

Dr. Moore has been an Investigator at the Virginia Coast Reserve Long-term Ecological Research site since 2008. She was the lead editor of Barrier Dynamics and Response to Changing Climate published in January 2018 by Springer and served as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Committee, “Long-term Coastal Zone Dynamics: Interactions and Feedbacks between Natural and Human Processes along the U.S. Gulf Coast,” which released its report in June 2018.  Moore currently serves on NASEM Standing Committee for the Mississippi Delta Project and as Chair of the NC Coastal Resources Commission Science Hazards Panel.