An Accidental Sea-Level Rise Specialist

Left to his own devices, Ben Dorfman would go swimming in the ocean every day. “As much as I can,” he confirms. He has a passion for the water that, had he been on friendlier terms with chemistry, might have made him a marine biologist. But Dorfman prefers working with words over formulas, which has led him to a different kind of ocean work: focusing on sea-level rise policy.

Growing up in Santa Cruz, Dorfman always loved the coast. The wide, gently sloping beach of his hometown, the dramatic rocky cliffs of Big Sur. Given how much he enjoys hiking and the outdoors, pursuing environmental studies after high school was a no-brainer. “It was not a hard decision. I knew from a young age I wanted to focus on the environment,” he says. 

He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2019, then worked for several years at California State Parks as a park aide and interpretative specialist. Then came a master's degree in International Environmental Policy from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey.

Dorfman didn’t have a clear-cut career goal in mind at that point. That’s not the kind of person he is, he says. But doors kept opening, leading him to several sea level rise-related projects, which piqued his interest. “I thought, this fits me well. I've lived along the California coast my whole life, so it feels appropriate for me to work on this,” he remembers.

With his master’s degree in hand, Dorfman landed a State Fellowship with California Sea Grant, which brought him to the Ocean Protection Council just as the state agency was updating its sea-level rise guidance. That guidance distills the most current and authoritative research on the topic to ensure that the state's sea-level rise planning is grounded in the latest expert knowledge.

The previous guidance had been issued in 2018. “This meant updating the policy recommendations based on six years of new science,” says Dorfman, who created a spreadsheet in which he consolidated the feedback that a first draft of the new guidelines received from other state agencies and the public. Then he helped to incorporate the input into a revised version of the guidance. “Two of my closest co-workers were former Sea Grant Fellows, which was a cool connection,” says Dorfman.

He enjoyed the work so much that he extended his one-year fellowship for an extra six months, before taking on a job with the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC).

As a state agency with jurisdiction over San Francisco Bay and its shoreline, BCDC regulates development in the Bay Area, with an eye toward protecting the Bay’s shoreline and adapting it for climate change. For Dorfman, this means he will continue working on sea-level rise policy. While going swimming in the ocean as often as he can, of course.