LSU
Melissa Baustian, adjunct professor in the Department Of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, was awarded the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana’s 2018 Coastal Stewardship Award at the 2018 State of the Coast Conference in New Orleans. She is one of six award recipients this year. This award honors those who demonstrate a commitment to the coast by contributing to the restoration and conservation of Louisiana’s wetlands.
Her numerous other activities include: serving as the deputy director for the RESTORE Act Center of Excellence for Louisiana, working as a coastal ecologist at the Water Institute of the Gulf, and volunteering at Louisiana Sea Grant’s Ocean Commotion. In addition to teaching at the College of the Coast & Environment, Baustian is an alumna of the college. As a former graduate student of Nancy Rabalais, she studied the benthic habitat (the microalgae that inhabit the sediments) of an area of low oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico known as the “Dead Zone,” and she is documenting hypoxia, or oxygen deficiency, in the Gulf currently.