Meet Nathan Hall ’09, new director of IE’s Morehead City Field Site
January 10, 2025
This fall, the Morehead City Field Site welcomed a new director, but he is no stranger to the program. Nathan Hall, who has taken leadership of the field site, has been involved with the program for more than 16 years.
“I’ve always been one of the mentors for the independent study project, even when I was a post-doc here at the Institute of Marine Sciences,” said Hall, now a research assistant professor at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences. “Then I started teaching the capstone course. I gradually just became more and more involved.”
Hall is stepping into his new role with a clear vision for the future of the Morehead City Field Site—to build on the leadership of previous directors and make enhancements as he sees opportunities. Because of his long history at the field site, Hall had a front-row seat to the operations and leadership and wants to maintain the high bar they set.
“Nathan has been doing amazing work with Morehead City Field Site students for years and leading the group capstone research effort. He has this unique ability to connect with students, engaging them in research with real-world applications and solving environmental challenges. Nathan is also a delightful person and great fun to work with,” said Susan Cohen, associate director of the UNC Institute for the Environment.
Students in Hall’s inaugural cohort as director conducted research on the Rachel Carson Reserve for their capstone research project. The reserve, which protects the Town of Beaufort from storms, has been eroding, it also serves as habitat for several critically endangered species and a herd of horses that draws in tourists.
“This project is going to be providing the Rachel Carson Reserve with how to best manage the island to protect the reserve and the local community. I think it’s exciting,” he said. “The research the students are doing is real research. We have no idea what the answers are—that’s why we are doing it. It’s novel research addressing real-world issues.”
Previous capstones, Hall explained, helped the City of Beaufort identify hotspots of water pollution from failing sewer lines. The mayor of the city credited the research of the field site students with helping the city correct the sewer line problems and restore water quality to the natural habitats around the city.
Hall’s own research examines water quality and algae in lakes, rivers and estuaries, and the field site team has a diverse range of research interests including coastal geology, physical oceanography, marine landscape ecology, coastal restoration, and fisheries ecology. In addition, the field site team leans on the hub of experts around the region to match students with opportunities for research and mentoring experiences. Founding director of the field site, Rachel Noble, Mary and Watts Hill, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Marine Sciences, organizes the independent study program and matches students with researchers in the area.
“Within a 5–10-mile radius we have an immense amount of marine research, management and advocacy going on and through the field site we draw on that, particularly for the independent study projects.”
In addition to specialized coursework, a hallmark of the field site is the hands-on experiences students get to advance a real research problem and help the local community. In a typical week, students spend two days in classes, one day on field excursions, and two days conducting independent research projects with resident faculty, internships with local institutions or working on the capstone project.
“We are training students on not just the basic background of a lot of environmental issues, we’re training them how to critically think about these environmental issues and see it from different sides,” Hall said. “Environmental issues are really complex. If they weren’t complex, we would have fixed them by now.”
Hall is looking forward to the coming years as director of the field site.
“The part I’m most excited about—I get to see the difference it makes in students’ lives and in their careers after the field site and from the experiences you just can’t get in a regular lecture-type class. For some students it is transformational,” he said. “We’ve had lots of field site students go on and become professors or environmental managers. It really has shaped what they do. So, to me—being a part of that—it’s why I like being involved in the field site program.”
The Morehead City Field Site is located in Morehead City, N.C. at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS). IMS is an off-campus research, teaching and service unit of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Earth, Marine, and Environmental Sciences. The field site program is a collaboration of the Institute for the Environment, the Environment, Ecology and Energy Program and the UNC Study Abroad Office.
Hall earned a Ph.D. in environmental sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. His research interests primarily include coastal ecosystem dynamics, the impact of climate change on marine environments and sustainable resource management.
Story by Nijah Pope and Emily Williams
Nijah is a recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill majoring in environmental studies with a minor in geography. They are passionate about the conservation of biodiversity and natural resource management, and have previous experience in journalism, education and outreach work on a local scale. Their academic focus includes studying the relationships between ecosystems and human impact to contribute to sustainable solutions for the environment. After attending graduate school, their professional interests revolve around ecological research, environmental advocacy and hands-on conservation efforts.
Emily is the director of communications at the UNC Institute for the Environment.