Wayne Wagner

I am a teacher at the Jesuit High School of New Orleans. I teach physics. My educational interests focus on teaching new ways to think. I have taught numerous classes (and taken quite a few more) and the best all focus on the students' cognitive development. Students always ask how they'll use specific facts, and I believe that they often will not use them. However, within a given discipline, the best educators teach how to think, analyze, and synthesize. These skills are useful, regardless of the student's future.

My scientific interests center on physical processes in natural water and how they affect the biological and human systems on which they rely. I don't do much research any more, but I do enjoy thinking on it! My curiosity led me to graduate school at Berkeley with Mark Stacey, where I studied California's complex Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and to David Mohrig at the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin for a postdoc studying Louisiana's Wax Lake Delta. My graduate training specifically focused on environmental fluid mechanics, but I branched out into statistics, geomorphology, and remote sensing, among other fields. I enjoy a good problem, great colleagues, and a better world.

Apart from science and education, my hobbies include running, reading, ping pong, frisbee, and backpacking. Here's some personal stuff.

Site last updated on December 29, 2021