Erwin Seibel

Contact Information

Biography

Education

B.S. Geology - City College of the City University of New York
M.S. Oceanography - The University of Michigan
Ph.D. Oceanography - The University of Michigan

Research and/or Teaching Area

What I have enjoyed most since returning to the department after being Dean of Undergraduate Studies and serving as Associate Director of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges is being around students and Science College and department colleagues. It is nice to be back in the classroom and back dabbling in some research especially thinking again about the processes that might contribute to the formation of beach cusps. I have been interested in the formation and denudation of beach cusps my entire professional career. I now think that perhaps the same mechanism that works to form nearshore ice volcanoes might be the contributing mechanism for beach cusp formation namely the unequal distribution of wave height along storm generated waves or the effect of internal waves on moderating wave heights at regular and predictable intervals. I plan to test both of these ideas out this spring. As many of you who know me staying away from policy and policy issues is difficult so it should come as no surprise that over the last five years I have remained involved in policy development and implementation of said policy. I worked behind the scenes in the formulation of some of the ideas in the newly revised master plan for higher education here in California and while at WASC as well as when I returned to SFSU I played a major role in the reformulation of how universities are evaluated during the accreditation process. The new design focuses both on the ability to deliver what it says it delivers as well as how effective is the education that a university says it delivers. Both of these undertaking were great opportunities to work with colleagues across disciplines, from across the country and worldwide. I had a great time and the products were worth the efforts.