Pittsburgh native Brian Glazer was only 4 years old when he told his parents he wanted to be a marine biologist. “I couldn’t even pronounce it then, but I always had a love for the ocean and coastal systems,” he says.  

Glazer’s deep passion for ocean life took him to Hawaii, where he parlayed that passion into a career dedicated to studying water movement. Glazer ’97 Sci is the co-founder and CEO of Hohonu, a public-private partnership dedicated to providing real-time water data that operates in 16 states. Glazer developed an app that empowers communities to combat flooding and dangerously high water levels. It tracks live tide measurements from hundreds of Hohonu and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stations and generates tidal predictions.

Hohonu represents a shift in how cities think about managing water-related emergencies, Glazer says. “City sustainability officers are all starting to have this groundswell of demand for hyperlocal data that approaches federally rigorous standards without those $300,000 price tags,” he says.

Hohonu’s data is also available to citizens in areas susceptible to high water levels. “Imagine a parent who has to pick up their kids from school, and they can use the app to find out how a road getting there is now flooded at high tide—and this is available to them in real time,” Glazer says.

An Eagle Scout, Glazer holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in marine studies from the University of Delaware. He is also an associate professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii. —David Silverberg