Photo: Lauren Darcy, New York Sea Grant Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Specialist.

Contacts: 

Lauren Darcy, New York Sea Grant Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Specialist, P: 315-849-3962, E: led222@cornell.edu

Kara Lynn Dunn, NYSG Great Lakes Publicist, P: 315-465-7578, E: karalynn@gisco.net

Watertown, NY, November 11, 2024 - New York Sea Grant (NYSG) has hired Lauren Darcy as a Great Lakes Coastal Specialist for the eastern Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River region of New York State. From NYSG's new office in Watertown, New York, Lauren will serve as a conduit to NYSG's expertise with coastal processes and hazards, Great Lakes fisheries and ecosystem health, water quality, Great Lakes literacy training for teachers and informal educators, and coastal tourism. Lauren earned a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree at the University at Buffalo.

Early in 2025, Lauren, along with NYSG Great Lakes Coastal Community Development Specialist Mary Austerman, will be hosting focus groups to determine the information and resource needs of local decision makers, building inspectors, supervisors, mayors, and Tribal leaders. NYSG provides local governments with training in best practices related to water resources and land use planning, green infrastructure, and stormwater and floodplain management. This training empowers local communities to build resilience capacity against extreme weather and storm impacts. NYSG also provides development of customized tools and resources.

Lauren can be reached at 315-849-3962; the new NYSG regional office is housed with the Tug Hill Commission at the Dulles State Office Building in Watertown.

More Info: New York Sea Grant

Established in 1966, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Sea Grant College Program promotes the informed stewardship of coastal resources in 34 joint federal/state university-based programs in every U.S. coastal state (marine and Great Lakes) and Puerto Rico. The Sea Grant model has also inspired similar projects in the Pacific region, Korea and Indonesia.

Since 1971, New York Sea Grant (NYSG) has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

NYSG historically leverages on average a 3 to 6-fold return on each invested federal dollar, annually. We benefit from this, as these resources are invested in Sea Grant staff and their work in communities right here in New York.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

New York Sea Grant, one of the largest of the state Sea Grant programs, is a cooperative program of the State University of New York (SUNY) and Cornell University. The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org, follow us on social media (Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and YouTube). NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which it publishes 2-3 times a year.