About

Lindsay Dubbs, Ph.D., is a Research Associate at the Coastal Studies Institute and has been affiliated with the institute since 2012. She has served as an ecology lecturer at the Outer Banks Field Site hosted by CSI since 2008. Her educational background includes a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, obtained in 2009, a master's degree in the same field from UNC Chapel Hill in 2004, and a B.S. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Tufts University in 2000. Her research interests broadly focus on biogeochemistry and ecosystem-scale ecology, with specific attention to how energy and nutrient dynamics in terrestrial, coastal, and nearshore marine ecosystems are influenced by energy generation and natural resource management decisions. She is also interested in engaging students, including undergraduates, in natural science research and place-based educational opportunities. Her current projects include investigating salinity gradient energy as a clean energy resource for North Carolina, assessing the effects of Gulf Stream turbines on Sargassum communities, and studying public attitudes towards marine hydrokinetic energy in coastal North Carolina.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Soil science
• Oceanography
• Geography
• Meteorology
• Geotechnical engineering
• Chemistry
• Geology
• Environmental engineering
• Thermodynamics
• Botany
• Ecology
• Engineering
• Biology

Selected publications

• <b>Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC): Introduction to Marine Energy -- Short Course 2025</b>

  Figshare · 2026-04-28

  otherOpen access

  Course Materials from the first Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC) Introduction to Marine Energy Short Course (IMESC).From Monday, August 4^th through Friday, August 8^th, the first Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC) Introduction to Marine Energy Short Course (IMESC) was held at the University of New Hampshire. 27 students, from 17 universities in 14 U.S. states, participated in the course.AMEC experts gave lectures on: Energy and Renewable Energy, Introduction to Marine Energy, Tidal Energy, Wave Energy, Powering the Blue Economy Applications, Marine Energy Economics, Energy Policy, Introduction to Laboratory Experiments, Microgrids, Energy Storage, Energy-Water Grid at Shoals Marine Lab, Analysis of SML energy and water data, Environmental Considerations, Stakeholder Engagement, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, Offshore Wind Energy, Numerical Modeling and Digital Twinning. Laboratory experiments on both tidal and wave energy conversion, specially designed for the course, were conducted by student groups in the UNH tow and wave tank.On Monday, there was a dinner and panel discussion with guests from marine energy industry and DOE-WPTO. On Tuesday evening, half a dozen UNH faculty involved in AMEC gave flash talks on their research. Community breakfasts were held at Chase Lab each morning, and working lunches with their mentors on Tuesday and Thursday helped student groups focus on their Course Project.Throughout the week, students and instructors took technical tours of the Chase Ocean Engineering Laboratory and its marine energy research infrastructure, the CCOM Visualization Lab, the Turbine Deployment Platform at the UNH Pier, the UNH Tidal Energy Test Site at Memorial Bridge (and Living Bridge Project), the Open-Source Tidal Energy Converter (OSTEC) being readied for deployment in the high-bay lab in Kingsbury Hall, and the UNH Flow Physics Facility.Most of the course was taught at Chase Ocean Engineering Laboratory, but a highlight of the week was the trip to Shoals Marine Laboratory (SML) aboard the R/V Gulf Challenger on Wednesday, August 6. The trip began with “A Captain’s Perspective on Marine Energy Device Deployment”. At SML on Appledore Island, there were location-relevant lectures and tours of the Energy-Water Grid and energy and water conservation measures.<i>AMEC acknowledges and highly appreciates the funding provided for the short course by the Department of Energy, Water Power Technologies Office, under award DE-EE0011379.</i>

  PublisherDOI

• <b>Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC): Introduction to Marine Energy -- Short Course 2025. Course Materials</b>

  Figshare · 2026-04-28

  otherOpen access

  Course Materials from the first Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC) Introduction to Marine Energy Short Course (IMESC).From Monday, August 4^th through Friday, August 8^th, the first Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC) Introduction to Marine Energy Short Course (IMESC) was held at the University of New Hampshire. 27 students, from 17 universities in 14 U.S. states, participated in the course.AMEC experts gave lectures on: Energy and Renewable Energy, Introduction to Marine Energy, Tidal Energy, Wave Energy, Powering the Blue Economy Applications, Marine Energy Economics, Energy Policy, Introduction to Laboratory Experiments, Microgrids, Energy Storage, Energy-Water Grid at Shoals Marine Lab, Analysis of SML energy and water data, Environmental Considerations, Stakeholder Engagement, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, Offshore Wind Energy, Numerical Modeling and Digital Twinning. Laboratory experiments on both tidal and wave energy conversion, specially designed for the course, were conducted by student groups in the UNH tow and wave tank.On Monday, there was a dinner and panel discussion with guests from marine energy industry and DOE-WPTO. On Tuesday evening, half a dozen UNH faculty involved in AMEC gave flash talks on their research. Community breakfasts were held at Chase Lab each morning, and working lunches with their mentors on Tuesday and Thursday helped student groups focus on their Course Project.Throughout the week, students and instructors took technical tours of the Chase Ocean Engineering Laboratory and its marine energy research infrastructure, the CCOM Visualization Lab, the Turbine Deployment Platform at the UNH Pier, the UNH Tidal Energy Test Site at Memorial Bridge (and Living Bridge Project), the Open-Source Tidal Energy Converter (OSTEC) being readied for deployment in the high-bay lab in Kingsbury Hall, and the UNH Flow Physics Facility.Most of the course was taught at Chase Ocean Engineering Laboratory, but a highlight of the week was the trip to Shoals Marine Laboratory (SML) aboard the R/V Gulf Challenger on Wednesday, August 6. The trip began with “A Captain’s Perspective on Marine Energy Device Deployment”. At SML on Appledore Island, there were location-relevant lectures and tours of the Energy-Water Grid and energy and water conservation measures.<i>AMEC acknowledges and highly appreciates the funding provided for the short course by the Department of Energy, Water Power Technologies Office, under award DE-EE0011379.</i>

  PublisherDOI

• Characterizing the Baseline Soundscape at the Jennette's Pier Wave Energy Test Center

  2025-09-29

  articleSenior author

  In preparation for recording sound from wave energy conversion (WEC) devices, Coastal Studies Institute (CSI) has analyzed the baseline soundscape at the Jennette's Pier Wave Energy Test Center. Hydrophones were deployed at this site on several days with various wind and wave conditions. The recordings were grouped into bins according to wind speed and wind direction. Biogenic noise was detected, including dolphin clicks and whistles as well as fish vocalizations. The power spectral density per bin was calculated both before and after removing the biogenic noise. For one of the four hydrophone deployments in this study, the recording was dominated by fish vocalizations. Since the fish vocalizations are in the same frequency band as the expected noise from a WEC device, this biogenic noise source could make it challenging to characterize the sound of a WEC device at this site.

  PublisherDOI

• Reframing the contribution of pelagic Sargassum epiphytic N2 fixation

  PLoS ONE · 2023 · 16 citations

  • Biology
  • Ecology
  • Botany

  Though nitrogen fixation by epiphytic diazotrophs on pelagic Sargassum has been recognized for decades, it has been assumed to contribute insignificantly to the overall marine nitrogen budget. This six-year study reframes this concept through long-term measurements of Sargassum community nitrogen fixation rates, and by extrapolating mass-specific rates to a theoretical square meter portion of Sargassum mat allowing for comparison of these rates to those of other marine and coastal diazotrophs. On 24 occasions from 2015 to 2021, rates of nitrogen fixation were measured using whole fronds of Sargassum collected from the western edge of the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Across all dates, mass-specific rates ranged from 0 to 37.77 μmol N g-1 h-1 with a mean of 4.156 μmol N g-1 h-1. Extrapolating using a mat-specific density of Sargassum, these rates scale to a range of 0 to 30,916 μmol N m-2 d-1 and a mean of 3,697 μmol N m-2 d-1. Quantifying this community's rates of nitrogen fixation over several years captured the sometimes-extreme variability in rates, characteristic of marine diazotrophs, which has not been reported in the literature to date. When these measurements are considered alongside estimates of the density of pelagic Sargassum, rates of nitrogen fixation by Sargassum's epiphytic diazotrophs rival that of their coastal macrophyte and planktonic counterparts. Given Sargassum's wide and expanding geographic range, the results of this study suggest this community may contribute reactive nitrogen on a meaningful, basin-wide scale, which merits further study.

  PublisherDOI

• Temporal variation of power production via reverse electrodialysis using coastal North Carolina waters and its correlation to temperature and conductivity

  Desalination · 2020 · 18 citations

  • Environmental science
  • Environmental engineering
  • Meteorology
  PublisherDOI

• Persistence and potential causes of reduced net CH4 consumption under elevated CO2 in a temperate forest

  Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · 2019-08-12

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Impacts of the projected increase in atmospheric CO2 on other biogeochemical cycles are uncertain. In a two-year study, Phillips et al. (2001) reported a 16 to 30% decrease in net consumption of atmospheric CH4 by soils in CO2-enriched plots in a temperate loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) forest. Consumption by upland soils accounts for [approximately]30 Tg CH4 y-1 and is the only terrestrial sink for atmospheric CH4, which is a greenhouse gas with radiative forcing second only to CO2. However, it is uncertain whether decreased atmospheric CH4 consumption represents a transient or sustained response of forest-soil systems to elevated CO2. This research focused on field observations aimed at investigating the strength and persistence of reduced atmospheric CH4 consumption by temperate forest soils under elevated CO2 at the same study site. It further investigates the causes of this response by CH4 oxidizing and producing communities through field and laboratory experiments. Rates of soil-atmosphere CH4 exchange were repeatedly measured over 3 y from permanently established sampling sites at the Free Air Carbon Dioxide (FACE) site in the Duke Forest, where CO2-enriched plots of a loblolly pine forest are maintained at approximately 200 mL L-1 above ambient concentrations (380 mL L-1), while control plots are exposed to ambient atmospheres. Reduced net atmospheric CH4 consumption persisted in CO2-enriched plots, showing annual declines of 19, 10 and 8% relative to control plots. This study and previous work give a nearly continuous 8 y record of reduced net atmospheric CH4 consumption in CO2 -enriched plots that suggests this is likely a sustained negative feedback to increasing atmospheric CO2. Causitive factors for the observed decrease in net CH4 consumption under elevated CO2 were difficult to identify because of high spatial and temporal variability in microbial activity and limited ability to collect soil samples. However, higher soil moisture and increased incidence and rates of CH4 production in CO2-enriched plots, along with transient inhibition by plant exudates and low overall soil diffusivity, begin to explain reduced rates of CH4 consumption and increased rates of CH4 production that result in long-term reduction in net CH4 consumption in these soils.

  PublisherDOI

• Rates of Nitrogen Fixation by the Pelagic Sargassum Community in the Gulf Stream off North Carolina

  AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts · 2019-12-01

  article
  Publisher

• Detection of dolphin burst-pulses off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, correlated to oceanographic features

  The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2019-03-01 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  To assess the ecological impact of extracting energy from the Gulf Stream, the University of North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute has deployed a mooring on the continental slope off Cape Hatteras at a depth of 230 m, equipped with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, CTD, and a hydrophone. Analyzing 16 months of data, we automatically detected dolphin “quacks” or “barks”, using two detectors. First, we used a pitch detector to automatically detect such signals over a specified range of pitch values. Next, we used a matched filter approach. All detections were reviewed manually to eliminate false alarms. For these signals, we found a strong correlation with temperature and salinity at the bottom; the vocalizations were detected when the water was relatively cooler and fresher. As the Gulf Stream meanders seaward of the mooring site, the temperature and salinity there both decrease. Since this cooler water is higher in nutrients, one explanation for the correlation is that the marine mammals are attracted to this more productive water. Alternatively, the meandering Gulf Stream may influence either (a) the acoustic propagation around the mooring and/or (b) the acoustic noise around the mooring. Evidence for each alternative will be presented.

  PublisherDOI

• Assessment of Scour Potential under Wave Action Using ISEEP

  2018-06-06

  articleSenior author

  Field testing with ISEEP was conducted at Jennette’s Pier, located in Nags Head, NC. The Pier is subjected to high energy waves on a daily basis, and one of its piles was fitted with a Nortek acoustic beams device that monitors distance from the sensor to the seabed with time. An approach is introduced for assessing the wave-induced bed shear stress and stream power as a function of the wave parameters. The data from ISEEP are used along with the estimated stream power to assess the scour rate at one of the pier’s pile. The computed results are presented for wave heights of 1–5 m and wave periods that ranged from 8 to 17 s. ISEEP data indicted two subsurface sand layers with the lower layer having smaller detachment rate coefficient. This is confirmed by the fact that the lower layer has a coarser grain size distribution with shell fragments. Using an average wave period of 17 s and an average wave height of 3.5 m, results using the ISEEP data with the proposed approach illustrated the possibility of obtaining scour levels similar in magnitude to the monitored data. A direct comparison between measured and computed results with time was however not possible since the time resolution of the collected wave parameters was too coarse, and backfilling of the scour hole with loose sand occurred with time.

  PublisherDOI

• Potential local environmental impacts of salinity gradient energy: A review

  Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews · 2018-12-12 · 66 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael F. Piehler

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  5 shared

• Yulian Abay Kebede

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  4 shared

• Mohammad Kayser

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  4 shared

• Mohammed A. Gabr

  4 shared

• Caitlin Seyfried

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  4 shared

• Stephen C. Whalen

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  3 shared

• Hannah Catherine Palko

  3 shared

• S. Lockhart

  Coastal Carolina University

  2 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Environmental Sciences and Engineering

  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  2009

• M.S., Environmental Sciences and Engineering

  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  2004

• B.S., Biology; Environmental Studies

  Tufts University

  2000