Our Lab Group

Located at UNC-Chapel Hill in the Department of Earth, Marine, and Environmental Sciences, in Mitchell Hall.

Dr. Antonia Sebastian is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sebastian’s research applies interdisciplinary methods to simulate how flood hazards and associated risks are evolving in response to changing human and environmental conditions. Her recent research also investigates the financial resilience of individual households and communities, including the role of underlying social and economic vulnerabilities on inequitable outcomes after flood disasters. Prior to joining the faculty at UNC in 2020, Sebastian was an Associate Research Scientist at Texas A&M University at Galveston (2017-2019) where she helped to establish the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas (IDRT). She has also held positions as a postdoctoral researcher (2016-2017) and Netherlands-America Foundation (NAF)/Fulbright Flood Management Fellow (2014-2015) in the Department of Hydraulic Engineering at Delft University of Technology. Sebastian currently serves as member of the Board of Deltares USA, a Guest Editor for the journal of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) scientific committees on Climate Adaptation and Coastal Engineering Sciences, and a rotating panelist for Hydrology section of the American Geophysical Union.

Degrees

Ph.D. Environmental Engineering, Rice University (2016)

B.S. Civil Engineering, Rice University (2011)

Antonia Sebastian, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Marine and Environmental Sciences

Joint Appointment, Environment, Ecology and Energy Program

Adjunct Appointment, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Director, Sustainable Triangle Field Site

Curriculum Vitae

Lab Members

Our team includes graduate, postdoctoral, and undergraduate students from departments across UNC–Chapel Hill, bringing interdisciplinary expertise and diverse research interests.

Helena Garcia

PhD Student

Helena is pursuing a PhD through the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program (E3P) at UNC Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on identifying patterns of repetitive flood exposure and investigating how flood experiences influence residential mobility. She is also interested in questions of equity: who floods, who relocates or stays after flooding, and who receives federal assistance in flood recovery.

Dr. Lauren Grimley

Postdoctural Research Associate

Dr. Grimley studies the impacts of extreme and chronic flooding in communities at the river-coastal interface of eastern North Carolina. She uses environmental and socio-economic data to build models that predict flood hazards and risks. Her work bridges the physical and social dimensions of flooding to promote more equitable hazard management and climate adaptation strategies.

Hunter's research uncovers trends in extreme weather events using high-resolution meteorological data, extreme value analysis, temporal geostatistics, and (un)supervised machine learning methods. Specifically, he studies the amplification of pluvial hazards that occurs when convective storms are preconditioned by heat waves.

Hunter Quintal

MS/PhD Student

Dr. Marissa Webber

Postdoctural Research Associate

Dr. Webber's research focuses on assessing past and future flood risks for urban areas and critical infrastructure in eastern North Carolina. During her PhD at Carnegie Mellon University, she modeled urban flooding to inform climate adaptation for transportation and stormwater systems. Her work highlights the use of climate data and nature-based solutions under deep climate uncertainty.

Abigail Thomas

PhD Student

Hannah Weas

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Hannah is an undergraduate senior studying Environmental Studies and Sustainability, with minors in GIS and Geology. She is interested in remote sensing, geospatial analysis, and the effects of climate change on the built environment. Her research focuses on monitoring recovery from Hurricane Helene by creating a training dataset to improve damage assessment technologies using ground-based imagery detection.

Jillian Evans-Strong

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Dr. Alexa (Lexi) Henny

Postdoctural Research Associate

Ruitian Yan

PhD Student

Ruitian Yan is in the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program (E3P) at UNC-Chapel Hill. Co-advised by Dr. Hino and Dr. Sebastian, Ruitian is interested in studying the social and financial impacts of flooding on housing. Prior to joining UNC, she worked in the financial sector on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and climate risk management. She received her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Brown University.

James Collins

PhD Student

James P. Collins is in the Department of City and Regional Planning mentored by Dr. Hino. His research engages with coastal communities in North Carolina experiencing and responding to flooding. He investigates how social, economic, and housing factors influence vulnerability and resilience, with projects on chronic coastal flooding, H-2A farmworker housing, and the long-term impacts of residential floodplain buyouts. His work aims to inform more equitable and effective strategies for hazard mitigation and climate adaptation.

Kieran Fitzmaurice

PhD Student

Kieran is in the Environmental Sciences and Engineering Program in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. He is mentored by Dr. Characklis, the director of UNC-CH's Institute for Risk Management and Insurance Innovation. His research explores Systemic financial risk arising from residential and commercial flood losses from tropical cyclone weather events. He received his bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

Lab Affiliates

Visiting PhD student

Xi Zhong

Xi is a PhD exchange student from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, currently conducting research at UNC Chapel Hill. Her work is dedicated to developing a physics-compatible and data-driven tropical cyclone risk assessment framework. Specifically, she constructs a synthetic tropical cyclone database and performs numerical simulations of storm surges.

Jillian is an undergraduate senior studying Environmental Health Sciences at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, with minors in Geography and Data Science. She is interested in the effects of natural disaster exposure on health and healthcare access. Jillian's research focuses on measuring building-level hurricane exposure.