Claire Masteller, an assistant professor of earth, environmental, and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, won a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for her project "Capturing the translation of wave climate to coastal change on rocky shorelines across scales." The highly sought-after award is reserved for early-career faculty who successfully combine research with mentoring and education.
The grant will support Masteller's ongoing research into the power of water to shape landscapes. After years of studying erosion along riverbanks, she'll turn her attention to the powerful waves that crash into the West Coast, from Southern California to central Oregon.
Powerful storms and big waves are a fixture along the Pacific coast, but the impact on the coastline has been unclear.
"There's compelling evidence that large ocean waves are becoming more frequent, but we don't actually know that larger waves erode rocky shorelines more efficiently than smaller waves," Masteller said.
