Reed D. Benson joined the University of New Mexico law faculty in 2008. At UNM he serves as faculty editor in chief of the Natural Resources Journal. He spent the previous six years at the University of Wyoming College of Law. Prof. Benson teaches courses relating to water resources law and administrative law, and has also taught legislation and environmental law. He has written several articles on water law and policy in the West, most recently "Dams, Duties, and Discretion: Bureau of Reclamation Water Project Operations and the Endangered Species Act", 33 Columbia Journal of Environmental Law 1 (2008). Prof. Benson is a co-author for the 6th edition of Water Resource Management, a leading Water Law text. He has also spoken at numerous conferences, focusing primarily on environmental aspects of water management by state and federal agencies. Before he began his teaching career, Prof. Benson worked in Oregon for the nonprofit conservation group WaterWatch, serving four years as a staff attorney and five as executive director. He also worked as an attorney for a Boulder, Colorado law firm, for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC, and for the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies. He earned a B.S. with honors in economics and environmental studies from Iowa State, and a J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1988.
Shlomi Dinar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University in Miami. His research spans the fields of international environmental politics, security studies, and negotiation with particular interest in conflict and cooperation over transboundary freshwater. Dinar is likewise interested in the formal arrangements states negotiate and how such agreements encourage participation and compliance. His current work investigates the role of water scarcity in promoting international cooperation and the relationship between climate change and treaty compliance. He is the author of International Water Treaties: Negotiation and Cooperation along Transboundary Rivers (Routledge 2008) and co-author of Bridges over Water: Understanding Transboundary Water Conflict, Negotiation and Cooperation (World Scientific 2007).
Lee E. Dunbar received a BS in Biology from Upsala College in 1974 and an MS in Marine Ecology from the University of Connecticut in 1979. Lee has been employed with the Department of Environmental Protection since 1978. He is currently serving as the assistant director of the Planning and Standards Division of the DEP Water Protection and Land Reuse Bureau. His responsibilities include oversight of scientific and technical staff responsible for implementing a number of water management activities including water quality-based permitting support, total maximum daily load development, lakes management, non-point source grant program, watershed coordination, aquifer protection, inland and marine water quality and biological monitoring and assessment, technical support for the nitrogen trading program, and development and implementation of Connecticut State Water Quality Standards and Criteria. Recently, he has been assigned lead responsibility to oversee the development of stream flow regulations for Connecticut.
Peter Galant is a Vice President with Tighe and Bond and leader of their Water Technical Practice Group. He has over 20 years of experience in water supply planning, design and construction. Peter is a past president of the Connecticut Water Works Association and is a member of the Water Resources Committees of the CT Section of the American Water Works Association and the New England Water Works Association. Peter has also participated in the workgroups assisting the CT DEP develop new streamflow regulations.
Dr. Peter H. Gleick is co-founder and President of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. The Institute is one of the world’s leading non-partisan policy research groups addressing global environment and development problems, especially in the area of freshwater resources. Dr. Gleick is an internationally recognized water expert. His research and writing address the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, water privatization, and international conflicts over water resources. His work on sustainable management and use of water led to him being named by the BBC as a "visionary on the environment" in its Essential Guide to the 21st Century. In 2008, Wired Magazine called him “one of 15 People the Next President Should Listen To.”
Dr. Gleick is one of the nation’s leading scientists working on the implications of climate change for water resources. He has also played a leading role in highlighting the risks to national and international security from conflicts over shared water resources. He produced some of the earliest assessments of the connections between water and political disputes and has briefed major international policymakers ranging from the Vice President and Secretary of State of the United States to the Prime Minister of Jordan on these issues. He also has testified regularly for the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and state legislatures, and briefed international governments and policymakers.
Dr. Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2003 he received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his work on global freshwater issues. He was elected an Academician of the International Water Academy, in Oslo, Norway, in 1999. In 2006 he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. and his public service includes work with a wide range of science advisory boards, editorial boards, and other organizations. Gleick is the author of more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and six books, including the biennial water report "The World’s Water" published by Island Press (Washington, D.C.).
John Herlihy is Director of Water Quality and Environmental Management for Aquarion Water Company, a public water supply company serving a population of 580,000 in 36 towns in Connecticut. John has over 30 years of experience in drinking water related water quality and environmental management matters. John is also the Vice Chairman of the Connecticut Section of the American Water Works Association.
Deborah Lapidus is the National Organizer with Corporate Accountability International, a membership organization that protects people by waging and winning campaigns that challenge irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions around the world. Deborah organizes public officials, students, members, and activists around the country to get involved with the Think Outside the Bottle Campaign. As a graduate of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, Deborah has traveled around the country coordinating grassroots environmental and electoral campaigns. Deborah graduated from Brown University in 2005 with a concentration in international relations and the global environment.
Marc Levy is Deputy Director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He also serves as an adjunct professor in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is a political scientist specializing in the human dimensions of global change. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed works on environment-security connections, environmental sustainability, emerging infectious diseases, the geography of poverty, and the effectiveness of international environmental institutions. He serves as Lead Project Scientist of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center and directs the Earth Institute’s Cross-Cutting Initiative on Environment-Security Linkages. He has served on a number of global environmental assessments and frequently advises national governments and international organizations on global change issues. Before coming to CIESIN in 1998 Levy had teaching appointments at Princeton University and Williams College.
Lynne Lewis is an Associate Professor of Economics at Bates College in Maine. Prior to joining to Bates College, she served on the faculty at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Colorado in 1994 after finishing a two-year dissertation fellowship at the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Much of her research has addressed transboundary water resource management including efficiency analysis of allocation agreements, compliance with allocation rules, tradable permits for pollution control and the valuation of environmental amenities and disamenities with watersheds and coastal zones. Most recently, she is working on a research grant focused on valuing the potential benefits from dam removal and river restoration. She is also working on a project looking at climate change and interstate water sharing agreements. She served on the Board of Directors of the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) from 1998-2005, and currently serves on the Board of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the Penobscot River Science Steering Committee and the Advisory Board of Mitchell Center for Environment and Watershed Research.
Prof. Kaggere Shivananjaiah Lokesh obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Bangalore University, securing First Class with Distinction. He obtained his Master’s Degree (M.Tech.) in Environmental Engineering from the premier organization Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur during 1987. He successfully completed his Ph.D. degree from the University of Roorkee (presently IIT, Roorkee) in the area of Environmental Engineering during 1996.
Prof. Lokesh is the founder associate of the Dept. of Environmental Engineering (1987) and the Dept. of Biotechnology (2000) in the college. He has over 70 research publications in national and international journals (including peer journals) and conferences. He has been a special invitee by SIDA, Sweden from India to participate and present his research findings in a Special International Conference on Ecological Sanitation held at Inner Mongolia, China during 2007.
Aaron Salzberg serves as the Special Coordinator for Water Resources in the Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science in the Department of State. He is responsible for managing the development and implementation of U.S. policies on drinking water and sanitation, water resources, and transboundary water and leads the U.S. Government’s response to the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005. Aaron has been the lead water advisor for the United States at several major international events on water including the Second, Third and Fourth World Water Forums, the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and several G8 Summits.
Aaron has a Ph.D. in Genetic Toxicology and a Masters degree in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and has mediated more than forty civil disputes as a mediator with the Harvard Law School.
Mark P. Smith is the Director of the Eastern U.S. Freshwater Program for The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Prior to joining TNC, Mark spent six years as the Director of Water Policy at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) and six years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Boston as the project manager for the Casco Bay Estuary Project, part of EPA’s National Estuary Program. He has a master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis.
Amy Vickers is a nationally recognized water conservation and efficiency expert and author of the award-winning Handbook of Water Use and Conservation: Homes, Landscapes, Businesses, Industries, Farms (http://www.waterplowpress.com/). She also wrote the national water efficiency standards for plumbing fixtures that were adopted under the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 1992, a measure that will save an estimated 6 to 9 billion gallons of water daily in the U.S. by 2020. Most recently, Ms. Vickers's Boston Globe op-ed, "Putting a cap on the bottled water industry,"* resulted in a public hearing at the Massachusetts State House on the growing problem of excessive groundwater extractions by bottled water companies. She is now working to pass legislation that calls for a moratorium on new and expanded extractions for bottled water. As president of Amy Vickers & Associates, Inc., an independent research and consulting practice based in Amherst, MA, Ms. Vickers has assisted over 100 public and private sector clients across the US, Canada, England, and the Middle East. A frequent public speaker and author of over 50 articles and professional papers, Ms. Vickers has been interviewed and quoted by The New York Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal & Constitution, CNN, NPR and other media. She serves on the Board of Directors of the national nonprofit Alliance for Water Efficiency. Education: M.S., Engineering, Dartmouth College; B.A., Philosophy, New York University.
Glenn Warner, Ph.D., P.E. is a professor in the Natural Resources and the Environment Department at the University of Connecticut. His principal areas of interest are in water resources with a specialty in soil and water management in landscapes. His research includes ground water-surface water interactions, water and chemical movement in soils and modeling dynamic processes and interactions in ecosystems.
Ellen Wohl received her BS in geology from Arizona State University in 1984 and her PhD in geosciences from the University of Arizona in 1988. She has been a faculty member at Colorado State University since 1989. Her research focuses on physical processes and forms of rivers, particularly mountain streams and bedrock canyon rivers. She has authored or co-authored more than 90 scientific articles and 22 book chapters, edited 2 technical books, and written 6 books. To date, she has conducted field research on every continent but Antarctica.