Alvaro Umana has been the director of the Environmentally Sustainable Development Group at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York. He was the first Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of Costa Rica under President Oscar Arias. Dr. Umana is a member of the Jury of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Previously he was director, professor, and founder of the Natural Resources Program of the Instituto Centroamericano de Administracion de Empresas in Alajuela. Dr. Umana is the former chairman of The World Bank Inspection Panel, which registers complaints on violations of The World Bank¡¯s policies. He is a member of the Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Resources Institute, and the Stockholm Environment Institute. Dr. Umana received a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Stanford University. He is an alumnus of three Salzburg Seminar/EARTH University Sessions on Sustainability, Education, and Management of Change in 1999, 2000, and 2003.
Professor Tchobanoglous is widely recognized for his many textbooks in environmental engineering and for advancing the use of new technologies in four key areas: wastewater treatment and water reuse, small and decentralized wastewater management systems, ultraviolet (UV) disinfection for wastewater reuse, and solid waste management. He received the Clarke Prize from NWRI in 2003 and was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2004. In 2012 he received the first Excellence in Engineering Education Award from AAEE and AEESP. Retired from UC Davis Professor Tchobanoglous remains at the forefront, currently making a strong case for direct potable reuse of wastewater.
The 2 are founders of Mango Materials, a startup that is attempting to commercialize production of biodegradable plastics from methane. Last year Mango won the grand prize ($630,000) in the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge Business Plan Competition. The process uses insights gained from their PhD research as they attempt to commercialize production of biodegradable plastics from methane (digester gas, landfill gas, etc.).
Lisa is an eco-hydrodynamicist with the United States Geological Survey. Inhabiting the interface between physics and biology in aquatic ecosystems, she studies how interactions between hydrodynamics and other physical and biological processes influence the base of the aquatic food web (namely, phytoplankton). She primarily works in tidal systems like San Francisco Bay, employing numerical models and field measurements (ideally, together) to improve understanding of how these ecosystems work and to support informed ecosystem management. Lisa currently co-leads "CASCaDE" (Computational Assessments of Scenarios of Change for the Delta Ecosystem). This hyper-disciplinary modeling project aims to develop and link several numerical models of the San Francisco Bay-Delta-Watershed-Atmosphere system. The goal is to assess plausible scenarios of change over the coming century for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the fragile freshwater ecosystem at the head of San Francisco Bay and the hub of California’s water delivery system.
Dr. El-Fadel is Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the American University of Beirut (AUB). He is also a Senior Consultant to the World Bank on environmental safeguards in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Prior to joining AUB, Prof El-Fadel worked in US-based consulting firms for over a decade during which he was designated as an expert witness in several US Federal Courts to provide testimony related to cases in environmental litigation. Since joining AUB, he equally served as an expert advisor/consultant to the European Commission, the United Nations, the US Information Agency, the US Agency for International Development, the International Development and Research Center of Canada, the World Health Organization, the Swedish International Development Agency, and various government agencies and regional / international firms.
Joel N. Swisher, PhD, PE, is Consulting Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, where he teaches graduate-level courses on Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Electric Utility Planning Methods. Dr. Swisher is also an independent consultant with over 30 years experience in research and consulting on many aspects of clean energy technology. He is an expert in energy efficiency technology and policy, carbon offsets and climate change mitigation, and electric utility resource planning and economics. Dr. Swisher was formerly Director of Technical Services at Camco International, a developer of carbon offset projects, and Managing Director Of Research and Consulting at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), where he is now Senior Fellow. At RMI, he led RMI’s energy efficiency consulting work for electric utilities and corporations in mining, oil and gas, and the manufacture of products from semiconductor chips to potato chips. Dr. Swisher has a PhD in energy and environmental engineering from Stanford, and he also earned a BS and MS from Stanford’s School of Engineering. Dr. Swisher is a registered professional engineer, and he speaks five languages.
Jenna's research focuses on the intersection of health, economic development and environmental protection, with particular emphasis on cost-effective and sustainable water supply and sanitation (W&S) service delivery in developing countries. She works closely with Stanford and other researchers covering a range of disciplines through Stanford¡¯s Woods Institute for the Environment's Program on Water, Health & Development