Richard W. Wagner

My name is Wayne Wagner, and I am a professor of practice in the Department of River and Coastal Science and Engineering. My educational interests focus on teaching new ways to think. Over two decades of teaching, I have taught numerous classes (and taken quite a few more) and the best all focus on the students' cognitive development. Students always ask how they'll use specific facts, and I believe that they often will not use them. However, within a given discipline, the best educators teach how to think, analyze, and synthesize. These skills are useful, regardless of the student's future.

My scientific interests center on physical processes in natural water and how they affect the biological and human systems on which they rely. I don't research any more, but I do enjoy thinking on it! After doing undergraduate work in civil engineering at Auburn University and getting a master's degree in secondary math education at the University of New Orleans, my curiosity drove me into academia. I studied California's complex Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta under Mark Stacey at Berkeley (for grad school) and Louisiana's beautiful Wax Lake Delta under David Mohrig at the the University of Texas at Austin (for a postdoc). My graduate training specifically focused on environmental fluid mechanics, but I branched out into statistics, geomorphology, and remote sensing, among other fields. I enjoy a good problem, great colleagues, and a better world.

Apart from science and education, my hobbies include running, reading, ping pong, frisbee, backpacking, and, of course, my dog.