Research Group PI

Meagan Wengrove

Assistant Professor
Civil & Construction Engineering
meagan.wengrove@oregonstate.edu
Research interests


Current Graduate Students

Seok-Bong Lee

Ph.D. Student 2018-Present
Seok-Bong’s Research

Seok-Bong is a PhD student of Coastal and Ocean Engineering Program of Civil Engineering at Oregon State University. He has been part of the Wengrove Research Group since Fall of 2018. He was born at Busan, South Korea and he received his bachelor (Feb. 2016) and master’s degree (Feb. 2018) in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Seoul National University in South Korea. His hometown is the largest coastal city in South Korea, so he had a lot of interest and curiosity about coastal processes since he was a child. During his free time he enjoys swimming (even if he is a beginner at swimming), road trips in Oregon, and takes care of his daughter, Grace.

Hailey Bond

Ph.D. Student 2022-Present
Hailey’s Research

Hailey is a doctoral student in coastal and ocean engineering. She is originally from Costa Mesa, CA. She earned her B.S. in civil engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and her M.S. in coastal and ocean engineering at Oregon State University (2018-2020). After her M.S., she worked with Oregon’s Department of Land Conservation and Development as a Natural Resource Policy fellow, where she created a guidebook compiling information on coastal erosion control in Oregon.

Nadia Cohen

Ph.D. Student 2020-Present
Nadia’s Research

Nadia received her B.S. in Physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an undergraduate, she worked as an intern with the U.S. Army Engineer and Development Center’s Field Research Facility in Duck, NC, during which she assisted in the design, construction, networking, and deployment of low-cost mini-Argus systems, a video camera system used for coastal monitoring and research. Their image products provide estimates of shoreline and sandbar positions, wave characteristics, alongshore currents, and bathymetry. These undergraduate experiences sparked a deep interest in coastal and ocean physics and instrumentation for Nadia. Her Ph.D. will focus on the design and implementation of a specialized robotic system that will implant itself into an ice surface to measure melt processes and boundary layer physics on the near-vertical face of an iceberg. In her free time, she enjoys clamming, surfing, SCUBA diving, and hiking.

Carly Ringer

Master’s Student 2021-Present
Carly’s Research

Carly is a master’s student in the Marine Resource Management program with a focus in coastal processes, hazards, and climate change. She is originally from Normal, Illinois, and earned her B.S. in Geography/GIS from Brigham Young University. Carly studies coastal sand dune morphology and management, particularly the differences in managed and unmanaged dune morphology. Additionally, she is co-developing a new Oregon Coastal Dunes Management Guidebook to provide science-based guidance on dune management practices. Carly is passionate about improving the relationships between humans and the environment and increasing community resilience to coastal hazards. Prior to coming to OSU, Carly worked as a software product engineer at ESRI in Redlands, California.

Marcela Ijfu

Ph.D. Student 2022-Present
Marcela’s Research

Marcela Ifju is a first-year coastal and ocean engineering Ph.D. student at Oregon State University. She is originally from Florida where she attended the University of South Florida, earning her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. As an undergraduate she was an intern with the UGA Marine Institute, studying coastal resilience with Oysters and Mussels in the salt marshes of coastal Georgia. Through her engineering background, and her work with marine ecology, she became inspired to continue studying the intersection between engineering and the marine environment with a specific focus on physical oceanographic processes. Her Ph.D. study is focused on using a form of fiber optic monitoring, known as Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), to better understand waves in the coastal environment. During her free time, she enjoys surfing, climbing, hiking, and hanging out with her cat Suki.

Taylor Skaggs

M.S. Student 2022-Present

Taylor is a Coastal Engineering Master’s student at Oregon State University. She is originally from Tacoma, Washington and previously earned her B.S. in Civil Engineering at Oregon State University. As an undergraduate student, she joined the Wengrove research group to gain additional experience within coastal engineering before graduate school and helped work on collecting data tracking dune morphology along the Oregon coastline. Growing up volunteering at native plant sales and estuary plantings in Washington, Taylor is passionate about the intersection of engineering and natural processes. Her research involves the modeling of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) within nearshore environments, which was first started by Dr. Liz Hozenthal. In her free time, Taylor is working on her goal to visit every US National Park and enjoys hiking, rock climbing, and spending time at the beach.


Current Postdocs

Hannah Glover

2022-Present
Hannah’s Research

Hannah graduated from Bowdoin College in 2013 with a BA in Earth and Oceanographic Science. After graduating she worked as a field engineer at the Applied Physics Lab at UW, building and maintaining oceanographic moorings for the ORCA and NEMO programs. In 2016 she started graduate school at the University of Washington, working with Andrea Ogston in the Sediment Dynamics Group. Her Masters focused on the impacts of the Elwha River dam removals. Her PhD work focused on sediment transport in the Ayeyarwady River delta, Myanmar, and in Tauranga Harbor, New Zealand. Hannah joined the Wengrove Lab in 2022, where she is focusing on the use of fiber optics for nearshore monitoring. Outside of work, Hannah enjoys backpacking, doing puzzles, and hanging out with her 15 year-old dog.

Quentin Laporte-Fauret

Quentin’s Research

Quentin graduated from the University of Bordeaux (France) with a Bachelor’s in Geology and a Master’s in Coastal Oceanography. He then completed his Ph.D. there as well, where his research utilized a new conceptual approach to promote coastal dune remobilization by foredune notch excavation. He developed a morphological monitoring protocol using UAV photogrammetry and an accurate classification method of sedimentary cover and plant species using their hyperspectral signature. After his Ph.D., he held a postdoctoral position at the University of Bordeaux where he investigated the morphological evolution of a freely evolving dune system dissected by many blowouts. In the Wengrove Lab, he is interested in the effect of vegetation on dune morphology, including differences between native and invasive species, and he conducts this research using Lidar surveys of the plants and assimilates the data into an aeolian sediment transport – dune evolution model to better characterize the dune evolution according to the plant species present.


Current Undergraduate Students


Past Students & Postdocs

Past Graduate Students:

  • Dr. Liz Holzenthal, PhD Student 2015-2022; Currently working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Research and Development Center. Liz did her PhD research focused on SAV in the nearshore.
  • Jordan Converse, Master’s Student 2018-2020; Currently working for the U.S. Coast Guard. Jordan did his M.S. research focused on living shoreline sill wave attenuation and sediment dynamics.
  • John Dickey, Master’s Student 2019-2021; Currently working for Moffatt & Nichol. John did his M.S. research focused on sparsely planted and managed coastal dune sediment dynamics.
  • Timma Flanagan, Erasmus Master’s Student 2021; Currently working for Centipod. Timma did her M.S. research focused on wave attenuation rates and energy harvesting capacity of wave energy converter farms in the nearshore.
  • Jessica Paskoski, Master’s Student 2020-2022; Currently working for Jaia Robotics. Jessie did her M.S. research focused on munition mobility in the nearshore on mixed sand and cobble beaches.

Past Undergraduate Students and High School Students:

  • Nessa Garrey, High School Student, 2019-2021; Currently an undergraduate at UW.
  • Rob Lewis, REU Student, Summer 2019; Currently working for HDR
  • Ian Jaruk, REU Student, Summer 2019
  • Nada Albar, Undergraduate research assistant, spring 2022
  • Julia Holz, REU Student, Summer 2022

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