Alex Kolker
GUEST SPEAKER
Dr. Alex Kolker is an oceanographer, geologist, and climate scientist. He has worked in coastal systems across the world—in the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Everglades, along the Atlantic coast of the United States, and across North Africa. He is interested in how sea level changes locally and globally, how greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution overlap in industrial zones, the role of groundwater dynamics in large river deltas; the interactions between rivers and the open ocean; and in the natural processes that inform coastal restoration.
Dr. Kolker received his PhD in Marine and Atmospheric Sciences from Stony Brook University. He has served on a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine panel on the long-term evolution of the Gulf of Mexico, the Science Advisory Group for Louisiana’s Climate Initiatives Task Force, and the Framework Development Team for the Louisiana 2017 Master Plan.
Dr. Kolker has appeared in media outlets across the world, including The New York Times, Washington Post, the New Orleans Times-Picayune/Advocate, NPR, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, France24, and Al Ahram. He was featured in the award-winning documentary Last Call for the Bayou, and was the consulting producer on the documentary Iron Sharpens Iron. He has served as a Fulbright Scholar and Fulbright Specialist in Morocco. Dr. Kolker lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
