Speakers
Sam Bentley
Dr. Sam Bentley is a professor in the LSU Department of Geology and Geophysics. He holds the Harrison Chair in Sedimentary Geology, and is a fellow and former Director of the LSU Coastal Studies Institute (CSI), LSU’s largest and oldest interdisciplinary science research unit. He recently served for 3.5 years as Vice President for Research and Economic Development at LSU, stepping down in late 2022 after helping LSU’s research funding increase by 25% over two years of record growth. He earned his PhD in coastal oceanography from SUNY Stony Brook in 1998, and has held faculty positions at LSU, in the Oceanography and Coastal Sciences Department, and presently in Geology and Geophysics. He also spent five years at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), where he held the position of Canada Research Chair in Seabed Processes. He has been studying muddy coastal/deltaic/continental margin sediment dynamics since 1985, and the Mississippi River Delta since 1998, serving as PI or senior coPI on over $27M in grant funding. Technical aspects of his research focus on use of radionuclide geochronology and core analysis to better understand sediment dispersal patterns and seabed morphodynamics. A more interdisciplinary area of interest includes interactions among river-delta development, human coastal/delta management policies, and the feedbacks from implemented policies (such as river levees or diversions) to coastal morphodynamic change.