Impact

Real-World Impact & Engagement

From research models to real-world decisions

My work connects computational risk modeling with state-scale planning, practitioner engagement, and industry-scale flood model development.

Louisiana North Carolina Texas Industry flood modeling

Louisiana Coastal Master Plan

This work contributed to large-scale risk modeling for the 2023 Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, supporting long-term coastal risk analysis, protection and restoration evaluation, and levee design planning.

Contributed to technical analyses supporting 50-year statewide coastal planning.

Peer-reviewed technical reports

1. Fischbach, J. R., Johnson, D. R., Wang, J., Hemmerling, S., Cobell, Z., & Diaz, O. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Attachment C3: 50-Year FWOA Model Output, Regional Summaries. Version 3. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

2. Johnson, D. R., Fischbach, J. R., Kane, P., Wang, J., & Wilson, M. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Attachment C6: Future With Master Plan Model Outputs, Regional Summaries – Risk. Version 2. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

3. Johnson, D. R., Fischbach, J. R., Geldner, N. B., Wilson, M. T., Story, C., & Wang, J. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Attachment C11: 2023 Risk Model. Version 3. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

4. Wilson, M. T., Fischbach, J. R., Johnson, D. R., Wang, J., Kane, P., Geldner, N., & Littman, A. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Attachment E3: Nonstructural Protection Evaluation Results. Version 3. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

5. Hemmerling, S. A., Kane, P., Littman, A., Cobell, Z., Diaz, O., Fischbach, J. R., Johnson, D. R., & Wang, J. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Supplemental Material H6.1: Historic Storm Run - Ike. Version 1. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

6. Hemmerling, S. A., Kane, P., Littman, A., Cobell, Z., Diaz, O., Fischbach, J. R., Johnson, D. R., & Wang, J. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Supplemental Material H6.2: Historic Storm Run - Rita. Version 2. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

7. Hemmerling, S. A., Kane, P., Littman, A., Cobell, Z., Diaz, O., Fischbach, J. R., Johnson, D. R., & Wang, J. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Supplemental Material H6.3: Historic Storm Run - Barry. Version 2. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

8. Hemmerling, S. A., Kane, P., Littman, A., Cobell, Z., Diaz, O., Fischbach, J. R., Johnson, D. R., & Wang, J. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Supplemental Material H6.4: Historic Storm Run - Ida. Version 2. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

9. Hemmerling, S. A., Kane, P., Littman, A., Cobell, Z., Diaz, O., Fischbach, J. R., Johnson, D. R., & Wang, J. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Supplemental Material H6.5: Historic Storm Run - Issac. Version 2. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

10. Hemmerling, S. A., Georgiou, I. Y., Cobell, Z., Diaz, O., Fischbach, J. R., Johnson, D. R., & Wang, J. (2023). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Supplemental Material H6.7: Restoration Impacts on Surge and Risk – Coastal Forests. Version 2. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

11. Johnson, D. R., Fischbach, J. R., Kane, P., Wang, J., Cobell, Z., & Diaz, O. (2024). 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Supplemental Material H6.8: Interaction of Protection and Restoration Projects. Version I. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

Practitioner Engagement in North Carolina and Texas

The modeling frameworks and policy insights are being extended through practitioner-facing collaborations connected to the CHEER research network, with applications in eastern North Carolina and Houston, Texas.

Focus: translating research models into practical tools for evaluating mitigation strategies, funding design, and risk-informed planning.

Industry Flood Model Development

As a Senior Flood Engineer at Karen Clark and Company, I worked on large-scale flood model development for coastal and inland flooding across the United States.

Developed automated modeling workflows supporting large-scale U.S. flood event prediction and reproducible model development.

This work included research on hydrology and flood physics, review of historical flood events, refinement of stochastic flood catalogs, and integration of automated modeling frameworks.

Together, these efforts connect model development, policy design, and real-world implementation for disaster risk management.