Dr. Richard A. Davis Jr. was a professor of geology at the University of South Florida until 2005. He is now an emeritus distinguished university professor at USF and visiting professor/research associate at Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, Texas. His area of specialization is coastal geology with emphasis on beaches, barrier islands, and tidal inlets. He has written/edited 20 books and about 150 journal articles on topics of oceanography, coastal geology, stratigraphy, and sedimentology. He has been a visiting professor in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, and Germany. And he speaks and teaches workshops at universities all over the world. He holds the Shepard Medal in Marine Geology.