Connecting the Dots 2012
Speakers
Welcome
Stacey Bent, Chemical Engineering; Director, TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy; Co-director, Center on Nanostructuring for Efficient Energy Conversion.
Stacey’s research focuses on semiconductor processing, surface science, and materials chemistry, working toward applications in renewable energy devices and nanoelectronics.
The Global Freshwater Challenge
Jeff Koseff, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Director, Woods Institute for the Environment
Jeff studies the interaction between physical and biological systems in natural aquatic environments. In particular, he researches turbulence and internal wave dynamics in stratified flows, transport and mixing in estuarine systems, phytoplankton dynamics in estuarine systems, coral reef and kelp-forest hydrodynamics, chemical sensing in the marine environment, and coastal upwelling processes.
Buzz Thompson, Natural Resources Law; Director, Woods Institute for the Environment
Buzz focuses on the sustainable use of natural resources and the effective reform of regulatory institutions. He has published articles on such diverse topics as water markets, fisheries management, biodiversity protection, land conservation, the use of economics and market tools in environmental regulation, and cognitive barriers to resource management.
Panel Discussions
Africa: Water, Nutrition, Health and Poverty
Moderator: Jenna Davis, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Jenna researches the intersection of economic development and environmental management, with particular emphasis on cost-effective, sustainable water supply and sanitation services in developing countries. Current projects focus on decentralized, private-sector delivery of water and sanitation services; sustainable sanitation solutions for middle- and low-income urban areas; synergies between water and sanitation planning and economic development strategies; and links between water, sanitation, and health.
Panelists: Eran Bendavid, Roz Naylor, and Amy Pickering
Eran Bendavid, General Internal Medicine
Eran's research involves understanding the relationship between policies and health outcomes in developing countries. He explores how decisions about foreign assistance for health are made, and how those decisions affect health and health delivery systems in recipient countries. He further explores issues of resource allocation in low and middle-income countries through disease modeling and cost-effectiveness analyses.
Roz Naylor, Environmental Earth System Science; Director, Program on Food Security and the Environment
Roz focuses on the environmental and equity dimensions of intensive food production, and issues of aquaculture production, high-input agricultural development, biotechnology, climate-induced yield variability, and food security.
Amy Pickering, Postdoctoral scholar in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Amy uses social science, epidemiology, and microbiology to understand diarrheal disease transmission pathways among households in low-income countries and develop strategies to interrupt them.
Water in the West: Groundwater, Energy, Ecosystems and Infrastructure
Moderator: Dick Luthy, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dick's area of teaching and research is environmental engineering and water quality with application to water reuse and management of contaminated sediments. His work addresses the fate of hydrophobic organic compounds, interdisciplinary approaches to understand the behavior and bioavailability of organic contaminants, and the application of these approaches to environmental quality criteria and new cleanup practices.
Panelists: Craig Criddle, Andrew Fahlund, David Freyberg, and Buzz Thompson
Craig Criddle, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Craig is interested in the environmental engineering, science, and science literacy needed for clean water, clean energy, and healthy ecosystems. His research focus is environmental biotechnology.
Andrew Fahlund, Executive Director, Program on Water in the West
Having joined Water in the West in January 2012, Andrew fosters interdisciplinary research and convenes leaders from a broad spectrum of interests to address one of the American West's greatest challenges. Previously, he worked for the advocacy group American Rivers for the past 15 years.
David Freyberg, Civil and Environmental Engineering
David’s diverse research includes understanding surface-subsurface interactions in coupled reservoir/sediment/wetland/stream systems, quantifying and valuing hydrologic ecosystem services, modeling sediment deposition and mobilization in sediment-impacted reservoirs, sediment management in small reservoirs, the hydrology of riparian wetlands and vadose zone dynamics in tropical coastal zones.
Buzz Thompson (See Above)
China: Water, Food, Climate and Policy
Moderator: James Leckie, Civil and Environmental Engineering
James investigates chemical pollutant behavior in natural aquatic systems and engineered processes, specifically the environmental aspects of surface and colloid chemistry and the geochemistry of trace elements. Current efforts focus on the development of techniques and models for assessment of exposure of humans to toxic chemicals.
Panelists: Noah Diffenbaugh, David Lobell, and Jie Wang
Noah Diffenbaugh, Environmental Earth System Science
Noah studies the dynamics and impacts of climate variability and change, including the role of humans as a coupled component of the climate system. His work has focused on the role of fine-scale processes in shaping phenomena such as extreme weather, climate-vegetation feedbacks, atmospheric forcing of the coastal ocean, and Holocene climate variability.
David Lobell, Environmental Earth System Science
David's research focuses on identifying opportunities to raise crop yields in major agricultural regions, with a particular emphasis on adaptation to climate change. His current projects involve a range of tools including remote sensing, GIS, and crop and climate models.
Jie Wang, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Jie researches management and engineering informatics; decision making and knowledge management for enterprise sustainable development and global competitiveness; e-commerce and e-government; and information technology as a modern tool for business strategy.
Breakout Sessions
Implications and Opportunities for China’s Mass Urbanization
Stephan D. Camello, Graduate student, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Management Science and Engineering
Stephen is pursuing a PhD in civil and environmental engineering and a PhD minor in management science and engineering at Stanford. His work has developed a framework for which firm-owned ecosystem services can be valuated using market prices in order to be represented within corporate financial statements as assets. This research is motivated by the need to create rational environmental management decision support tools, which can be readily incorporated into firm-level strategies. Stephen has held positions in information technology project management, construction project management and construction strategic development. He is actively involved in a number of service initiatives, including the Stanford Board of Trustees Committee on Land and Buildings, the Society of Decision Professionals and the Stanford Decision Clinic.
Global Access to Safe Water: Where Do We Go From Here?
Sara Marks, Graduate student, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Sara is a PhD candidate in Stanford’s Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her research focuses on the social and technical factors that lead to sustainable outcomes for piped water systems in rural sub-Saharan Africa. She has completed field work in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Senegal. Before coming to Stanford, Sara worked as a consultant on environmental remediation projects and as a quality control technician in a municipal wastewater treatment plant. This summer she will begin a postdoctoral position with the Global Water Program in Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
To Pump or Not to Pump: The Groundwater Question
Melissa Rohde, Graduate student, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Melissa is a first year graduate student studying in the Environmental Engineering and Science program at Stanford. She is focused on developing holistic water management tools and strategies to aid rural communities in securing sufficient water resources. In rural India, she is currently working on developing decision-based water management tools that provide local community members with ways to quantify groundwater availability and enable users to optimize planning for water-related income generating enterprises. In addition, she is also investigating the links between water and energy consumption behavior related to irrigation in India, and working towards developing a low-cost solar irrigation system for smallholder farmers.
Dammed If You Do, Dammed If You Don’t: The Challenges of Dam Removal
Nicola Ulibarri, Graduate student, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources
Nícola is a second-year PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, and a National Science Foundation – David and Lucille Packard Foundation Stanford Graduate Fellow. She is interested in how humans interact with and manage water resources, with the aim of finding practices and institutions that allow us to relate to the natural world in a sustainable way. Her dissertation research explores collaborative, multiparty decision-making processes around hydropower licensing and dam removal in the western United States.
What’s Your Role, Mr. CEO? Water Stewardship in the Private Sector
Heather West, Program and research associate, The Bill Lane Center for the American West
Heather joined the Bill Lane Center for the American West as a program and research associate in September 2010. Her research focuses on water stewardship in the private sector. Prior to joining the center, Heather worked at Suntech America Inc., a solar module manufacturing company in San Francisco. In the fall, Heather will be pursuing graduate studies in business and environmental management, where she will continue to pursue her interest in natural resource use in the private sector.