Scholar Profiles
Nancy Nunn
2004 - 2005 University Scholar
Mentor: Robert Thieke
College of Engineering
Nancy Nunn was recently awarded a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. A native of Lakeland, Florida, she is a graduate of Lakeland Senior High School. She has been on the president’s and dean’s lists and is a member of Golden Key International Honors Society and the national civil engineering honorary, Chi Epsilon. She is active in the American Society of Civil Engineers and enjoys competing in its annual Concrete Canoe Competition. She is an avid sailor and enjoys racing sailboats with her family on Tampa Bay.
Research Description:
Rip Current Predictive Measures
This project is an effort to develop a simple predictive measure of rip current threat that will be formulated as a Java Applet and eventually be made available on the World Wide Web. The input data for this predictive scheme involves some site specific parameters (beach topography, depth of offshore bar) that needs to be measured by individuals on-site. Working with lifeguards at selected locations (Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Panama City) to develop a cooperative arrangement to collect such data on a daily basis and provide the inputs to the model is essential. At the same time, rip current rescue statistics will be collected from the same locations to both correlate with incident wave conditions and to evaluate the performance of the predictive approach. Although I will be focusing on this specific portion of the research effort, I will also be participating in the larger scale field experiments (including bathymetric surveying and in-situ velocity measurements) so I will have a better grasp of the complete scope of the entire project.
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