Dr. Thomas Herrington is the associate director of the Urban Coast Institute at Monmouth University and serves as the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium Resilient Communities and Economies Specialist. Dr. Herrington has 30 years of experience in coastal resilience and hazard mitigation research, including the monitoring and analysis of coastal system changes to storm surge and wave impacts, and the analysis of Nature and Nature Based Features for ecosystem restoration and community resilience.

Tom is a past pro-bono scientist with the American Geophysical Union Thriving Earth Exchange, where he worked with coastal community members on the co-production of actionable science to address climate change driven increases in nuisance tidal flooding.

Prior to joining Monmouth, Dr. Herrington was the director of the ocean engineering graduate program at Stevens Institute of Technology and the director of the New Jersey Coastal Protection Technical Assistance Service, where he developed and evaluated coastal protection systems for New Jersey. He has authored or coauthored over 100 journal, outreach and technical publications in the field of coastal and ocean engineering. Tom presently co-coordinates the New Jersey Coastal Resilience Collaborative and is a research team member of a NSF funded research coordination network focused on future climate change-driven coastal population displacement. Dr. Herrington serves on the Board of Directors of the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association, the Jersey Shore Partnership, and the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium.

Education

Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering, 1996, Stevens Institute of Technology

M.E. in Ocean Engineering, 1992, Stevens Institute of Technology

B.E. in Civil Engineering, 1989, Stevens Institute of Technology

Books

Books, Manuals, Chapters, Edited Journals and Proceedings

Guest Editor with M. Matella, J. Rosati and T. MacDonald: Shore and Beach, Vol. 86, No. 3. A dedicated issue: Long-term Coastal Adaptation.

Guest Editor: Shore and Beach, Vol. 84, No. 3. A dedicated issue: Learning the Lessons of Sandy.

Coastal Hazards and Mitigation Techniques in Blue Dunes: Climate Change by Design, edited by J.M. Keenan and C. Weisz, Columbia University Press, NY, NY, 2017.

Urban Beaches: Balancing Public Rights and Private Development, edited by Lesley Ewing, Thomas Herrington and Orville Magoon, Proceedings of the NSBPA 4th Annual Conference, October 24-26, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. ASCE, Reston Va., 91 pp., 2003.

Manual for Coastal Hazard Mitigation, New Jersey Sea Grant College Program, NJSG-03-0511, March 2003.

Recent Publications

Mohan, R. and T. Herrington (2021). Coastal Resiliency Considerations for America’s Four Coasts: Preparing for 2100. J. of Marine Env. Eng. 10(4), 319-330.

Gorton, A.M., T.O. Herrington, and E.R. Smith (2018). Investigation of Scour Adjacent to Submerged Geotextiles used for Shore Protection, J. of Marine Env. Eng.Vol.10, No. 2, pp. 71-83.

Walling, K., T.O. Herrington, and J.K. Miller (2016). Hurricane Sandy damage comparison: Oceanfront houses protected by a beach and dune system with vs. without a rock seawall, Shore and Beach, Vol. 84, No. 3, pp. 20-25.

Georgas, N., A. Blumberg, T. Herrington, T. Wakeman, F. Saleh, D. Runnels, A. Jordi, K. Ying, L. Yin, V. Ramaswamy, A. Yakubovskiy, O. Lopez, J. McNally, J. Schulte, and Y. Wang, (2016). The Stevens Flood Advisory System: Operational H3E Flood Forecasts for the Greater New York/New Jersey Metropolitan Region,” Int. J. of Safety and Security Eng., Vol. 6, No. 3, 648-662, doi:10.2495/SAFE-V6-N3-648-662, 1-8

Blumberg, A.F., N. Georgas, L. Yin, T.O. Herrington, and P. Orton, (2015). Street Scale Modeling of Storm Surge Inundation along the New Jersey Hudson River Waterfront, J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol, Vol. 32, pp. 1486-1497, doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-14-00213.1

Lopez-Feliciano, O.L., T.O. Herrington, and J.K. Miller (2015). A Morphology Change Study using CMS in a Groin Field during Hurricane Sandy, Shore & Beach Vol. 83, No. 2

Affiliations and Certifications

• American Academy of Underwater Scientist
• American Geophysical Union
• American Shore & Beach Preservation Association
• Coast, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute of ASCE
• US Coastal Research Program
• NSF Nearshore Extreme Events Reconnaissance (NEER) Association
• Vice President, Northeast Shore & Beach Preservation Association (NSBPA)
• NSF NHERI RAPID Certified
• TWIC & SWAC Credentialed
• Divemaster