UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON
RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA
RESEARCH
NORTH CAROLINA
A “BEAUTIFUL WAY” TO GIVE BACK TO NORTH CAROLINA UNCW’s Drew Davey and Mariko Polk conduct research designed to protect the state’s coastline and its people by Kristin Hanson
Water has long loomed large in Drew Davey’s life. He grew up along North Carolina’s Outer and Inner Banks. In high school he restored a sailboat, then started living on it. “I got an up-close look at coastal morphology [how the beach changes over time] and the consequences hurricanes are having on our coast,” Davey says. “That’s what got me interested in coastal engineering.” That interest led him – like many others – to UNC Wilmington, where a unique blend of expertise, infrastructure and location provide a perfect launch pad for research and careers in marine science. For Mariko Polk ’15M, the potential to make discoveries that can help protect and preserve our coastal resources brought her to UNCW not once, but twice. She received her M.S. in environmental studies in 2015 and
80
B U S I N E S S
Research_NC_July2021.indd 80
N O R T H
C A R O L I N A
returned in 2018 to study coastal ecology with Professor Martin Posey and Assistant Professor Devon Eulie. If a passion for the sea is a common thread that brought Davey and Polk to UNCW, so too is a resource that has helped keep them here: scholarship support. Davey received the LS3P Scholarship in Coastal Engineering, and Polk received the Francis Peter Fensel Sr. Memorial Scholarship. Increasing scholarships and other student support resources is a top priority of Like No Other: The Campaign for UNCW. Scholarships provide both undergraduate and graduate students financial relief that allows them to focus on big-picture questions they want to answer through experiences and research. “I can say from my own experience and other students SPONSORED SECTION
6/18/21 4:01 PM