Mike Miner, Ph.D., Director of Applied Geosciences, has over 20 years of experience in geology and coastal science. Born and raised in New Orleans, Mike received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in geology from the University of Mississippi where he studied the subsurface geology of southern Mississippi and Louisiana. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of New Orleans where his work focused on barrier island systems and tidal inlets of the Mississippi River delta plain.

In 2007, Mike joined the UNO Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences as a research geologist and played a critical role in the development and implementation of the Louisiana Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring Program in cooperation with Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He also led the island long-term morphologic evolution component on a study with USGS titled, Evaluation of Breton National Wildlife Refuge: Sand Resources, Regional Geology, and Coastal Processes of the Chandeleur Islands Coastal System.

Then in 2010, Miner joined the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and worked extensively on the Marine Minerals Program that manages federal offshore sediment resources for beach and barrier island restoration projects. In that role, he worked closely with state and federal partners on large scale coastal restoration projects using offshore sand resources, including the Caminada Headland Beach and Dune Restoration project which was the first project to use offshore sand from Ship Shoal. While at BOEM, Mike served as the bureau’s representative on the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force and on Department of Interior’s integrated teams supporting Gulf of Mexico science and restoration implementation. From 2016 to 2018 he was Federal co-lead for the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, Regional Sediment Management/Beneficial Use of Dredge Material Working Group.

Mike holds an adjunct professor appointment at the University of New Orleans in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.