DURHAM, N.H. -- University of New Hampshire experts are available to discuss the environmental impact and clean-up effort of the Louisiana oil spill as well as the accountability issues and political repercussions of the federal government and corporate responses to the disaster.

Nancy Kinner

Nancy Kinner
Nancy Kinner, director of the joint UNH/NOAA Coastal Response Research Center, is available to media to discuss the impact of the oil spill from the burning oil rig off the coast of Louisiana.

Interviews with Kinner can be arranged through Erika Mantz, director of UNH Media Relations, who can be reached at 603-969-7916 and erika.mantz@unh.edu.

A professor of civil and environmental engineering at UNH, Kinner has been co-director of the Coastal Response Research Center, a partnership between UNH and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), since 2004. The center brings together the resources of a research-oriented university and the field expertise of NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration to conduct and oversee basic and applied research, conduct outreach, and encourage strategic partnerships in spill response, assessment and restoration. Learn more here: www.crrc.unh.edu/

Melvin Dubnick

Melvin Dubnick
Melvin Dubnick, professor of public administration with the University of New Hampshire, is available to discuss the accountability issues and political repercussions of the federal government and corporate responses to British Petroleum's oil spill in Louisiana.
Dubnick can be reached directly at 617-803-6020 (mobile) and mdubnick@gmail.com.

"This is the kind of moment that challenges the capacity of public administration at number of levels. It is more of an Exxon Valdez moment that a Katrina moment for the nature of the damage this will do to the environment, but it's the political implications that are magnified by its location and timing -- and will play out as long as the slick is making its way to the coastal and delta areas," Dubnick says. 

Dubnick has extensively studied accountability and public administration issues for three decades. His recent research has focused on the local, state and federal responses to Hurricane Katrina, Boston's Big Dig, and the financial crisis.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling more than 12,200 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students.

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