Tidal Tech

These women are working to help the waters in their own different ways.

The opportunity for a person to make a living doing what they love while making a real difference is rare. For three local women, the work they do will impact the lives and livelihoods of those in coastal communities for years to come. SARAH DOSS, MARAE WEST, and CHRISTY SWANN are each dedicated to preserving the health and viability of our coastline and waters using their unique passions, talents, and skills.

CHRISTY SWANN became “addicted” to science as an undergraduate at East Carolina University. Now, as a coastal scientist and founder of RCOAST, Swann’s 4D intelligence company maps coastal health to optimize coastal intervention.

“Wind is a fundamental process to building our dunes, and dunes are our first line of defense,” Swann says.

While working on her Ph.D., Swann began to build her own instruments to measure winds. Her dissertation research became the catalyst for her postdoctoral research funded by NASA’s Mars Fundamental Research Program, simulating the surface of Mars and redefining the thresholds for motion on the planet, earning Swann two national awards.

After working at NASA, Swann worked with the Naval Research Lab until the pandemic gave her a chance to re-evaluate her goals.

“I love data and collecting data on coastlines. I want to help everyday people. This is about the beaches I grew up on, and where I caught my first fish with my dad – not just about publishing papers,” she says.

Swann left her government role to start Wilmington-based RCOAST, “to bring data and science to help communities to intelligently adapt to an extremely urgent problem that is only accelerating,” she says.

From Portugal to North Carolina, this shared 4D data provides a library of mitigation solutions with innovative ways to reduce erosion and build resilience as a global community.

“Instead of working in silos, we are building the bridge to connect science with engineering firms and average communities regardless of wealth or politics. We can get stronger together,” Swann says. “This is such an amazing moment in time that by collecting big data, before and after storms, we can process that big data and understand that big data. This allows us to do case study consulting and learn how to be resilient together.”

RCOAST optimizes investment in mitigation to “manage the coast with facts, not feelings,” Swann says. Its coastal science team won a Global Resilience Competition and $100,000 in funding to work in coastal communities. Having just moved back to Wilmington in May, Swann hopes to work with Wrightsville Beach to provide mitigation services for the north end of the beach near Shell Island.

Considering that in 2024, the nation spent $182 billion dollars responding to coastal disasters, Swann emphasizes the need for communities to work together and use the database to see what mitigation works best and where to optimize money and resources.

“We can give them the intelligence of where they need to manage hyperlocal erosion,” she says, “and plan financially by measuring the response of mitigation.”

To view more of photographer Daria Amato’s work, go to dariaphoto.com

Want more WILMA? Click here to sign up for our WILMA newsletters and announcements.