{"id":330775,"date":"2026-07-06T15:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/330775\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:29:07","slug":"fiu-experts-available-to-discuss-sargassums-impact-on-florida-beaches-fiu-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/330775\/","title":{"rendered":"FIU experts available to discuss sargassum&#8217;s impact on Florida beaches | FIU News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/case.fiu.edu\/about\/directory\/profiles\/leatherman-stephen.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Leatherman<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Professor<br \/>Earth and Environment <br \/>Institute of Environment<br \/>College of Arts, Sciences &amp; Education<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Leatherman is a professor in FIU&#8217;s Department of Earth and Environment, widely known as &#8220;Dr. Beach&#8221; for his annual Top 10 U.S. beach rankings, which he has issued since 1991.\u00a0In recent years, sargassum has become a major factor in his beach evaluations, with Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park excluded from his 2026 Top 10 list because of excessive seaweed buildup. Leatherman has written about how sargassum blooms, once rare before 2011, now regularly inundate the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and Florida coastlines each summer, driving away tourists, harming fishing industries, and requiring costly cleanups. Leatherman can speak to the ecological role sargassum plays at sea; its damaging effects on beaches, sea turtles, manatees, and coral reefs; and the economic toll it takes on Florida&#8217;s coastal communities<\/p>\n<p>Office: 305-348-8364<br \/>Email: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.fiu.edu\/2026\/mailto:leatherm@fiu.edu\" property=\"email\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">leatherm@fiu.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Leatherman ProfessorEarth and Environment Institute of EnvironmentCollege of Arts, Sciences &amp; Education Stephen Leatherman is a professor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-330775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}