Top 10 US Beaches of 2011 Revealed

Moving up a spot from last year, Florida's Siesta Beach — known for the whitest sand in the world and its clean, blue water — topped the 2011 list for best beaches, which was announced today (May 27).

This is the 21st year of the Best Beaches list, put together by Stephen Leatherman, director of Florida International University's Laboratory for Coastal Research in Miami, who is also called Dr. Beach.

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As with Siesta, all 10 beaches were chosen from Leatherman's survey of 650 public beaches along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts. He uses 50 criteria for ranking beach quality, including sand softness, frequency of rip currents, size of waves, presence of shorebirds, water color, the presence of oil and tar balls, whether it's overcrowded, public safety, maintenance of grounds and other factors.

Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.