MACH Summer Course participants in front of wetlands

Reflections from the Second Annual MACH Summer Course

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

MACH Summer Course participants with the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge Manager, Virginia Rettig & Senior Refuge Biologist Joe SmithIn June 2024, MACH hosted its second annual in-person Summer Course in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The MACH Summer Course is an immersive experience where participants spend a week living and learning together. This year, participants explored how climate research …

MACH team at the 2024 annual meeting in person.

2024 MACH Annual Meeting

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

The MACH project celebrated the end of its third year with an in-person meeting in Camden, NJ. The MACH team is spread across thirteen institutions, primarily operating in a remote workspace. While working remotely has many advantages for this team, providing opportunities to gather in person helps researchers form bonds and transform theory into practice. This year’s annual meeting was …

MACH Director, Dr. Robert Kopp, featured in special report, “Shrinking Shoreline,” by PBS New Jersey Spotlight News

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

“As the summer season kicks off this Memorial Day, NJ Spotlight News examines New Jersey’s shrinking shoreline and the significance this has on tourism and its impact on the state’s economy — as well as the billions of federal and state dollars being spent to maintain New Jersey’s beaches each year. New Jersey ranks number one in the country for …

MACH Director, Dr. Robert Kopp, named 2024 Guggenheim Fellow

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

The Director and Principal Investigator of the Megalopolitan Transformation Hub (MACH), Dr. Robert Kopp, has been named a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow for the field of Geography and Environmental Studies. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation “offers fellowships to exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form, under the freest possibleconditions”. Dr. …

Hurricane Katrina Flooding

New Study Aims to Improve Equity in Flood Risk Management

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

The MACH-supported study “Developing more useful equity measurements for flood-risk management” was published in Nature Sustainability this April. It is the product of four MACH team members: Adam Pollack, Casey Helgeson, Carolyn Kousky, and Klaus Keller. The study results may “help decision-makers around the world achieve more equitable outcomes from environmental public policy”. Adam Pollack, first author on the study …

Victoria Ramenzoni and DeeDee Bennett Gayle represent MACH at the UN Ocean Decade conference in Barcelona, Spain

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

On April  9, 2024, Dr. Ramenzoni and Dr. Bennett-Gayle joined the UN Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona, Spain to be honored as Women Ocean Leaders. Late last year four Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) members, including Rutgers University staff and faculty members Victoria Ramenzoni, Jeanne Herb, Lisa Auermuller, and  University at Albany, SUNY faculty member DeeDee Bennett Gayle, were selected …

MACH Administrative Director, Lisa Auermuller, featured as a convergence educator in educational film

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

The short educational film, Tools of Science: Creativity, explores how creativity is an essential part of the scientific process. It emphasizes the importance of “train[ing] scientists early to think creatively together” to generate innovative ideas that stem from cross-discipline collaboration. The MACH Administrative Director, Lisa Auermuller, is featured in the film as a convergence educator. Lisa teaches a course at …

MACH Administrative Director, Lisa Auermuller, presents at the 2024 New Jersey Coastal and Climate Resilience Conference’s plenary panel

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

On March 12, Lisa Auermuller, Administrative Director of MACH, presented during the plenary panel. Lisa’s talk discussed how MACH aims to bring together researchers and stakeholders to effectively inform the critical challenges of equitable climate risk management.  Hosted by the New Jersey Coastal Resilience Collaborative and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the 2024 New Jersey Coastal & Climate …

MACH researchers attend NOAA’s Social Coast Forum in Charleston, SC

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

From February 12th to 15th, a few of MACH researchers attended NOAA’s bi-annual Social Coast Forum in Charleston, South Carolina. Lisa Auermuller, the Administrative Director of MACH, joined a panel of seven other of the National Science Foundation’s Coastlines and Peoples grant participants to discuss lessons learned since 2019 when NSF began the CoPe program. The session was entitled “Lessons …

MACH students and postdocs present at the 2023 AGU meeting in San Francisco

Zoë Linder-Baptie2024

MACH-funded and MACH-affiliated students and postdocs Adam Pollack, Ariadna Martin Oliva, Javed Ali, Pravin Maduwantha, and Sara Santamaria-Aguilar, attended and presented their work at the 2023 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Dr. Robert Kopp, Director of MACH, presented virtually at the meeting as well. The AGU meeting brings together a “diverse community of scientists, students, journalists, …