The Focused Coastline and People Research Hub at Texas A&M

Dr. Koliou is an associate assistant professor at the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Texas A&M University. She joined the department after serving as a postdoctoral fellow at the NIST-funded Center of Excellence for Risk-based Community Resilience Planning at Colorado State University. She received her diploma in civil engineering from the University of Patras, Greece, in 2008, and holds a master’s degree from the University at Buffalo (2010) and a PhD from the same institution (2014). Her research focuses on developing resilient and sustainable structures and communities to withstand extreme events while safely accommodating growing urban populations. Her work includes system-level and community-level simulations that analyze the performance of structures and communities during extreme events. She is developing novel resilient structural designs and systems to address various natural hazards and is formulating fundamental mathematical frameworks to assess risk-based system functionality and community resilience. Dr. Koliou has received over $3 million in external research funding from federal, state, and private sources and is currently leading a multi-institution NSF project on the Gulf Resilience Coastlines and People Focused Research Hub, which focuses on the recovery of tribal communities in the Gulf region. She received the Structural Engineering Institute’s Young Professional Scholarship in 2018, the Research Impact Award from the Department of CEE at Texas A&M in 2021, the Engineering Genesis Award for multidisciplinary research from the Texas A&M College of Engineering in 2021 and 2024, and the NSF CAREER Award in 2021. She has recently been selected as one of the NSF and Every Page Foundation’s Ocean Decade Champions.

Dr. Sideris is an associate professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research focuses on assessing existing structures through advanced computational simulations and experimental methods. He also specializes in developing new resilient structures using advanced construction methods, such as 3D concrete printing and modular construction, as well as new materials, including cementitious and polymeric materials. His research approach integrates computational mechanics, performance-based engineering, and large-scale experimentation. Dr. Sideris teaches courses in advanced solid and structural mechanics, structural dynamics, reinforced concrete design, experimental methods, applied mathematics and numerical methods, and computer programming. He currently serves as vice chair of the ASCE/SEI Seismic Effects Committee and is a member of the ASCE/EMI Computational Mechanics Committee and the TRB Committee on Seismic Design and Performance of Bridges (AKB50). He is also an associate member of the ACI 564 Committee on 3D Printing with Cementitious Materials.

Dr. Anand J. Puppala currently serves as the A.P. Wiley and Florence Chair of Zachry Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and is the interim director of the Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR) at the Rellis Campus of TAMU. Dr. Puppala conducts research on the stabilization of expansive soils, ground improvement for mega projects, UAVs for infrastructure monitoring and asset management, dam safety and embankment slope studies, in situ intrusive methods for site characterization, infrastructure resilience, and material characterization. He has received several major research grants totaling over $25 million from federal, state, and local government agencies. Dr. Puppala is the director of NSF’s Industry University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) site on Composites in Civil Infrastructure (CICI) at TAMU and has served as a program director of TRANSET, a University Transportation Center (UTC) based at LSU. Dr. Puppala’s scholarly record includes more than 500 publications, including over 220 journal articles, and he has edited seven special publications. He is an editorial member of several major journals in civil engineering, including the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, the ASCE Journal of Materials, and the ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal. He has also edited several books, including seven ASCE Special Publications.

James Kaihatu is a professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University, where he has been since 2006. His primary expertise lies in the theoretical analysis and numerical modeling of ocean surface gravity waves, including wind-wave generation, propagation over varying undersea topography, interaction with tidal currents, and dissipation along coastlines. In recent years, he has expanded this modeling focus to include the prediction of hurricane-driven waves, storm surge, and corresponding on-land sediment deposition and flooding; tsunami inundation; and the long-term impacts of shamal winds and ongoing desalination activities in the Gulf region. He also investigates the interaction of tsunami waves with coastal islands and the resulting impact on coastal inundation. Kaihatu has participated in several field data collection campaigns, most notably post-hurricane structural damage and water level surveys in Galveston, Texas (post-Ike in 2008), Mexico Beach, Florida (post-Michael in 2018), and Abaco and Grand Bahama Islands (post-Dorian in 2019). His laboratory experience includes investigating tsunami interaction with coastal islands and its impact on coastal inundation.

Siyu Yu is an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and a core faculty member with the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. Her experience spans land use, plan integration, and resilience issues in the United States and the Netherlands. Much of Dr. Yu’s current research focuses on the development, application, and extension of the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS) evaluation methodology. The aim of this research is to better understand the relationships among the network of land use and development plans and policies and social and physical vulnerability to hazards and climate change. Her research has been published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Landscape and Urban Planning, and the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. Before arriving at Texas A&M, she worked as a senior urban planner at the Urban Planning and Design Institute of Shenzhen, China. She holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Science from Texas A&M University and is certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Dr. Jayur Madhusudan Mehta is an Associate Professor in Anthropology at Florida State University, specializing in the study of North American Native Americans, human-environment relationships, and the consequences of French and Spanish colonization in the Gulf South.

Stuart’s professional career began in Cultural Resources Management (CRM) as an archaeologist. Stuart has extensive experience conducting cultural resources surveys, including maritime and remote sensing projects, and has participated in numerous data recoveries on both historic and prehistoric archaeological sites in terrestrial and marine environments.

Haizhong Wang is currently an Professor of transportation engineering with the School of Civil and Construction Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.

Andrés D. González is an Associate Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Rice University, and in Engineering from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia).

Dr. Michelle Meyer is the Director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center and an Associate Professor in the Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning Department at Texas A&M University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at Colorado State University (CSU).