Rate My Professor Lisa Beal

Lisa Beal is a Professor of Oceanography in the Department of Ocean Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. She began her undergraduate studies in aeronautical engineering at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom before switching to oceanography. Beal earned her PhD in oceanography from the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton in 1997, with a thesis titled Observations of the velocity structure of the Agulhas Current. Following her doctorate, she conducted postdoctoral research at Columbia University and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where she secured her first National Science Foundation grant. In 2003, she joined the University of Miami as an assistant professor and has since advanced to full professor. She previously served as Associate Dean of Research at the Rosenstiel School and has held prominent editorial roles, including editor-in-chief of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans since 2021 and editor for the ocean section of Geophysical Research Letters from 2014 to 2017.

Beal’s research centers on physical oceanography, with a specialization in western boundary currents, particularly the Agulhas Current system off South Africa and its role in global climate dynamics. She has participated in 17 research voyages across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, accumulating 357 days at sea and serving as chief scientist on numerous expeditions, including the 47-day World Ocean Circulation Experiment crossing from South Africa to Australia and joint missions with South African scientists. Her Agulhas Current Time-series (ACT) project, funded by the National Science Foundation from 2010 to 2013, demonstrated that the current has broadened due to increased turbulence since the early 1990s, influencing heat transport, sea level rise, and regional climate patterns. Key publications include “On the role of the Agulhas system in ocean circulation and climate” (Nature, 2011), “Capturing the Transport Variability of a Western Boundary Jet: Results from the Agulhas Current Time-Series Experiment (ACT)” (Journal of Physical Oceanography, 2015), and studies on Agulhas leakage and Indian Ocean circulation. Beal has led a review of the Indian Ocean observing system for the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, co-organized the first American Geophysical Union Chapman Conference in Africa, and advocated for diversity in oceanography through a short film adopted by the Smithsonian Institution. In 2019, she delivered the Marie Tharpe Lecture at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.