Suzanne Van Cooten

Dr. Suzanne Van Cooten is the Deputy Chief of the Warning Research Development Division (WRDD) at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma where she leads research activities related to the Coastal and Inland Flood Observation and Warning (CI-FLOW) Project which brings together an interdisciplinary, multi-agency team that is currently prototyping a prediction system for total water level (storm surge+ waves+ tides+ river flows) for coastal watersheds in North Carolina and the Pamlico Sound. Dr. Van Cooten also serves on the State of Oklahoma aquifer recharge task team led by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board to investigate active aquifer recharge strategies to create sustainable water supplies for Oklahoma.
Dr. Van Cooten received a B.S. in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma, an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of New Orleans-LSU, and completed her Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Sciences also from the University of New Orleans-LSU. In her 19 years as a NOAA employee, she has been an operational weather forecaster for NWS offices in Fort Worth and New Orleans/Baton Rouge, a Hydrometeorological Analysis and Support (HAS) forecaster and hydrologist at the NWS Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center, a Regional and National NWS Program Manager in observing systems at NWS Southern Region HQ, and Chief Scientist at the NWS National Data Buoy Center at Stennis Space Center, Mississippi.