Education

Ph.D., Physical Oceanography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008
B.S., Physics , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999

Research Interests

Dr. Edwards' research focuses on the physical oceanography of the continental margins, where shelf-scale processes can have complicated interactions with topography and stratification at the nearshore boundary as well as the shelfbreak. Her current work takes a joint observational/modeling approach to describing the response of the coastal ocean to near-resonant forcing by sea breeze and land breeze near the critical latitude for diurnal/inertial resonance. Heating and cooling of shelf water also induce significant diurnal and supertidal variability in the coastal ocean, but the importance of air-sea interaction and subsynoptic meteorological variability is often neglected for circulation and ecosystem modeling on a regional scale. This higher frequency variability in the ocean and atmosphere (and associated mixing) has important implications for larval transport, nutrient budgets, and the larger coastal ecosystem.

Awards and Honors

• Member, Leadership Savannah class of 2014
• Thomas S. and Caroline H. Royster Fellow, University of North Carolina, 2003-2008
• One of four non-faculty speakers chosen for the Carolina Speakers Bureau (UNC), 2003-2009
• Recipient of U.S. Navy Special Act Award for emergency real-time modeling support to the Spanish government, Mar. 2003
• Selected to attend the Third Summer School on Inverse Methods and Data Assimilation, Oregon State University, Jul. 22-Aug. 2, 2002
• Recipient of AGU 2000 Scholar Fellowship, Jan. 2000
• Summer Student Fellow, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Summer 1999
• Recipient of Science Opportunity Fellowship (NSF), May 1997-May 1999
• SOARS (Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science) Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Summer 1998