NANCY RABALAIS
Executive Director and Professor
Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium
Chauvin, LouisianaCOURTESY OF THE JOHN D. & CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATIONIn 2005, Hurricane Katrina ripped parts of the roof off the research building of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON), situated 85 miles southwest of New Orleans in the heart of Mississippi River Delta wetlands. One month later, Hurricane Rita poured water into the facility, causing major flood damage. In 2008, Hurricane Gustav’s 157-mile-per-hour winds again damaged the roof. A month later, Hurricane Ike flooded the complex with the highest water levels the facility had ever seen.
“We’re constantly under repair,” says Nancy Rabalais, director of LUMCON. And just like her research center, Rabalais has weathered many storms, atmospheric and scientific, during her career. Once a graduate student ready to leave research, now a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Rabalais has zigged and zagged her way across land and ocean to become the face of coastal ecosystem research and outreach in the Gulf of Mexico. Her work over the last 3 decades has brought national attention to the dramatic expansion of marine hypoxic zones—areas of ocean with low dissolved oxygen concentrations that can no longer support aquatic life—and has shaped Rabalais into an outspoken advocate for mitigating this damage.
Here, Rabalais recalls chasing fiddler crabs around South ...
