Leigh Anne Sharp works for the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA). Leigh Anne earned a zoology degree from Auburn University and fell in love with coastal wetlands while taking a marine botany course at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. She was interested in the adaptations that vegetation had to develop to endure harsh, coastal environments. Sharp moved to Lafayette in 2000 to study Coastal Landscape Ecology with Dr. Robert Twilley.
Under Twilley, she was sent to Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge to study marsh processes across an array of management regimes. She was intrigued as she began to understand the complexity and richness of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands. She fell in love with the ecosystem, the region, and the people—and never left.
Sharp began working on the State’s coastal restoration effort as a scientist in the DNR Abbeville Field Office in 2002. She now supervises scientists in CPRA’s Lafayette Regional Office and manages scientific aspects of the CRMS program.