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Otis S. Johnson
Otis S. Johnson is a graduate of Armstrong-Atlantic State University and the University of Georgia. He earned the Master of Social Work degree from Clark Atlanta University in 1969 and the Ph.D. degree in Social Welfare from the Heller School at Brandeis University in 1980. At Cambridge College's 2007 Commencement Ceremony, Mayor Johnson was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. He retired from the position of Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Savannah State University in May 2002. Mayor Johnson is nationally known in the field of community building and youth development. He serves on the National League of Cities Council on Youth, Education, and Families and is a member of the boards of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation and MDC. He served as an At-Large member of the Georgia Municipal Association's Board of Directors (2004-2007). Mayor Johnson was Executive Director of the Youth Futures Authority, an Annie E. Casey Foundation initiative, from 1988-1998. He was elected in November 2003 and re-elected in November 2007 to become Savannah, Georgia's 64th Mayor. Mayor Johnson is the second African-American to hold that position.
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Christine Furstoss
As General Manager of Technology for GE Water and Process Technologies, Christine leads approximately 350 technologists working on critical chemical, membrane, device and processing technologies aimed at providing water treatment, water reuse and efficient process system solutions. Her team is located across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Prior to being named to this position in January 2008, Christine held a variety of positions in the technology organizations of GE, including materials engineer, product program manager, manager of development groups, business program manager, and global technology leader. She also was in a leadership position in GE’s Six Sigma quality initiative. In addition to Water and Process Technologies, Christine has worked at GE Energy and GE’s Corporate Global Research businesses. Christine likes to bring high energy, technical breadth and strong customer relationships to her roles to motivate and mentor others, build strong, integrated teams, and develop great technology!
Christine joined GE in 1989 in the Materials and Processes Engineering Department of GE Energy. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Materials Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Christine is married and has one son.
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Patricia Gruber
Dr. Patricia Gruber joined the Office of Naval Research in December, 2005 as the Director of Research. She is responsible to the Chief of Naval Research for S&T strategic planning and for the overall integration of the Discovery and Invention (D&I) portfolio (Basic and early Applied Research) in support of naval mission areas. She has primary responsibility for maintaining a strong D&I portfolio in S&T areas that are of interest to the Navy, providing transition bridges to later stages of development and nurturing academic and Naval S&T human capital resources.
Dr. Gruber came to ONR after serving as the Assistant to the Director for strategic planning at the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL), Penn State. ARL is a Navy-focused S&T laboratory and is the largest research unit at Penn State. In this role, she focused on expanding ARL’s research funding base to maintain and build core capabilities as a university center of research excellence for critical Naval sciences and technologies. She also served as Program Manager for several Department of Defense research projects.
Dr. Gruber has held technology management and business development positions at Marconi, AT&T Solutions, Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories and AT&T Bell Laboratories. She has been responsible for development and delivery of products and services in telecommunications, IT and defense industries. Dr. Gruber began her career as a Research Physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC where she was Principal Investigator for basic research projects in underwater acoustics including acoustic transients, boundary scattering, system performance and ambient noise.
Dr. Gruber obtained her Masters Degree in Physical Oceanography and her Ph.D. in Applied Marine Physics at the University of Miami.
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Charles L. Vincent, Ph.D.
Dr. Vincent is the Head of the Office of Naval Research Ocean, Atmosphere and Space Research Division, one of the two divisions in the ONR Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department. He was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in August 2007. Dr. Vincent has 32 years of civilian service.
The Ocean, Atmosphere and Space Research Division is responsible directly for oceanographic, meteorological, optical and biological (including marine mammal) basic and early applied research for the Navy and the Marine Corps. The Division Head also coordinates the Operational Environments S&T focus area, which includes Acoustics, Littoral Geosciences and Space Research. The focus area provides funding for operation of six oceanographic research vessels and provides the research underpinning for the Navy’s meteorological and oceanographic prediction systems. The direct research portfolio conducted by the Division is funded at $52M/year with a staff of seven professional scientists, two senior military officers, and five support staff. The focus area direct research portfolio is $140M/year.
Dr. Vincent’s areas of expertise include ocean waves, air-sea interaction and coastal dynamics. From 2001–2007, Dr. Vincent managed research programs in Coastal Sciences, Ocean Modeling and Physical Oceanography at ONR. From 1999–2001, Dr. Vincent was Navy Senior Scientist for Nearshore Hydrodynamics (ST), and from 1991–1999, he was the Army Senior Research Scientist for Coastal Hydrodynamics (ST).
Dr. Vincent received a BA (1969) in Mathematics, MS (1971) and Ph.D. (1973) in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia. He received the U.S. Army Decoration for Meritorious Civilian Service in 1989. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Michael E. Mann
Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Penn State University faculty, holding joint positions in the Departments of Meteorology and Geosciences, and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (ESSI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC).
Dr. Mann received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. His research focuses on the application of statistical techniques to understanding climate variability and climate change from both empirical and climate model-based perspectives. Current areas of research include paleoclimate data synthesis and statistical climate reconstruction using climate ``proxy'' data networks, and model/data comparisons aimed at understanding the long-term behavior of the climate system and its relationship with possible external (including anthropogenic) ``forcings'' of climate. Other areas of active research include development of statistical methods for climate signal detection, and investigations of the response of geophysical and ecological systems to climate variability and climate change scenarios.
Dr. Mann was a Lead Author on the "Observed Climate Variability and Change" chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report and in 2007 shared the Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC authors. Dr. Mann has been organizing committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences 'Frontiers of Science' and has served as a committee member or advisor for other National Academy of Sciences panels. He served as editor for the 'Journal of Climate' and has been a member of numerous international and U.S. scientific advisory panels and steering groups. Dr. Mann has been the recipient of several fellowships and prizes, including selection as one of the 50 leading visionaries in Science and Technology by Scientific American, the outstanding scientific publication award of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and recognition by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) for notable citation of his refereed scientific research. He is author of more than 100 peer-reviewed and edited publications, and recently co-authored with colleague Lee Kump the book “Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming”. He is also a co-founder and avid contributor to the award-winning science website “RealClimate.org”.
His work in the area of global climate change has been widely described in the popular media, including ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN news programs, Time Magazine, US News and World Report, NPR, The Economist, BBC, USA Today, and feature stories in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other U.S. and international news publications.
For more information, including electronic versions of publication and descriptions of current research projects, please refer to his website
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Peter Schultz
Peter Schultz is the Director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Office (CCSPO). His current responsibilities include management of CCSPO's program-wide scientific integration, planning, prioritization, and assessment activities through coordination with the CCSP Director (a senior manager from NOAA), the CCSP Principals, and the CCSP Interagency Working Groups. He joined CCSPO in 2004 as the Associate Director for Science Integration. Prior to that he worked for several years at the National Academies where he directed or co-directed a dozen scientific studies related to global environmental variability and change. He also directed the creation of the National Academies new museum exhibition on climate change. Schultz has also worked at the NOAA Climate Analysis Center on global-scale remote sensing of vegetation, and as a post-doc at Penn State on integrated assessment of climate change. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Geosciences from Penn State where he conducted research using climate, carbon cycle, and integrated assessment models. He holds a B.S. in Geology from Virginia Tech. In his spare time, he enjoys coaching and playing hockey, mountain biking, kayaking, and skiing.
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Richard Gelting
Dr. Richard Gelting works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, where he is the Team Leader for Global Water, Sanitation and Hygiene within the National Center for Environmental Health. Dr. Gelting has also participated in waterborne disease outbreak responses in multiple states and overseas. He has worked in local environmental health and engineering programs on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah and during his time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras, Central America. Dr. Gelting holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in environmental engineering from Stanford University, is a registered professional engineer and speaks Spanish.
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Jeff Seabright
Jeff Seabright is Vice President for Environment and Water at The Coca Cola Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Jeff has held several positions in government and business, including as a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department and as Legislative Assistant to US Senators Timothy E. Wirth and John D. Rockefeller IV. In 1993, he joined the U.S. Agency for International Development, later serving as Director of the Office of Energy, Environment & Technology. He moved to the White House in 1999 as Executive Director of the Climate Change Task Force where he helped negotiate the Kyoto Protocol and later joined Texaco, Inc. in New York as Vice President for Policy Planning. He earned a Master's degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and began his professional career with Booz Allen & Hamilton. He serves on the Environmental Trade and Technology Advisory Committee to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Conservation International – International Leadership Council, World Environment Center, the Georgia Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy (Georgia), the Pace Academy in Atlanta, and the Sustainable Atlanta Advisory Council.
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Tracy H. Eichler
Tracy H. Eichler is a Senior Vice President and member of the Citi Global Wealth Management Themes Research Group headed by Chief Investment Strategist Edward Kerschner. She joined the team to leverage and market the thematic investing platform to Citi Global Wealth Management.
Ms. Eichler has more than 22 years experience on Wall Street. She began her career with Drexel Burnham Lambert where she worked as an Equity Trader. She joined PaineWebber in 1991 as an Equity Research Associate and was promoted to Investment Strategist in 2000. She joined Merrill Lynch in 2006 as a Senior Investment Strategist, where she leveraged research to formulate Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) strategies.
Ms. Eichler has been a guest on several news networks, including CNBC, Bloomberg, and ABC and has been frequently quoted in the written press.
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Stephen J. Hoffmann
Steve Hoffmann is a co-founder of Palisades Water Index Associates, LLC and founder of WaterTech Capital LLC. Palisades Water Index Associates, LLC is the provider of a family of indices that serve as benchmarks for the water industry. Mr. Hoffmann is the principal architect of the Palisades Water Index and the Palisades Global Water Index which are published under the symbols ZWI and PIIWI, respectively, by the American Stock Exchange and Dow Jones. The Palisades Water Index is the basis for an exchange traded fund; the PowerShares Water Resources Portfolio (AMEX: PHO). The second ETF, launched in June 2007, is the PowerShares Global Water Portfolio (AMEX:PIO). WaterTechCapital LLC is a private investment and consulting company that specializes exclusively on opportunities within the water industry.
Mr. Hoffmann, a resource economist and limnologist, is recognized for his expertise in the water industry in which he has been active for over 25 years. His career in water has included many professional and entrepreneurial activities; water rate designer, college associate professor, hedge fund manager, commercialization activities, water analyst, private equity investor and water industry consultant.
Mr. Hoffmann is a long time member of the American Water Works Association, the Water Quality Association and the Water Environment Federation. He is a globally recognized publisher and speaker on topics within the industry and has been a contributing editor to the U.S. Water News' Water Investment Newsletter for over fourteen years. Mr. Hoffmann is currently working with John Wiley & Sons on the publication of a book on investing in water to be published in the Fall of 2008.
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Dean Moss
Dean Moss is General Manager of the Beaufort Jasper Water and Sewer Authority and has been in that position since 1986. Prior to that he had over ten years experience in water and wastewater planning and management at the state, regional and local levels in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina. Dean holds a BA in Geography from the University of Denver and a Masters in Regional Planning (Water Resources) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dean also is a U.S. Navy Veteran and served in Vietnam in 1968. He has served as a member of the South Carolina Water Law Review Committee and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Water Research Foundation. He currently serves as a member of the South Carolina Governor’s Savannah River Committee and is the Governor’s appointee to and Chairman of the Savannah River Maritime Commission.
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David Pyne
Since 2001 David Pyne has been president of ASR Systems LLC, Gainesville, Florida, working with ASR clients nationwide. Previously he worked for 30 years for CH2M HILL Inc. where he served in several capacities including firm wide Director of Water Resources Engineering. As a civil engineer, he has pioneered development of ASR technology since 1978 and has lead or participated in several ASR research programs. He has traveled globally, assisting several countries with ASR development programs and conducting training courses nationwide since 1994. Mr. Pyne is the CEO for the Etowah Water Bank based in Rome, Georgia. The Etowah Water Bank will store seasonably available water during winter months, creating an underground storage reservoir to supply water to the Atlanta area and northwest Georgia during droughts while augmenting downstream water flows to both Alabama and Florida.
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Fred Sturm
Mr. Sturm has been a member of Mackenzie’s investment team since 1981, and has established a reputation as one of the country’s leading investors in natural resource-based companies. Mr. Sturm has managed Ivy Global Natural Resources Fund since its inception in January of 1997. Mr. Sturm earned a degree in commerce and finance from the University of Toronto and is a CFA charterholder.
Mr. Sturm has more than 25 years of industry experience and is recognized as one
of the industry’s leading resource managers. Since 1981, his specialty has been in the natural resources sector.
Mr. Sturm focuses on companies that he believes can grow independently of commodity prices, as well as international low-cost leaders with “trophy assets.”
Mr. Sturm has developed a unique understanding of the fundamental factors that drive the natural resources industry as a whole. He travels the globe to conduct on-site visits to company headquarters and their field operations to truly understand whether a particular stock is a worthwhile investment.
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Chittaranjan Ray
Chittaranjan Ray is a Professor of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering at the University of Georgia at Athens. Prior to joining UGA in January 2008, he went through the ranks of Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. He received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the Texas Tech University. He worked for 4 years for the firm of Geraghty & Miller, Inc. as a staff engineer between his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees doing water supply development and contamination remediation. He was also a staff scientist at the Illinois State Water Survey while pursuing his Ph.D.at the University of Illinois.
His current research focus is riverbank filtration for water supply, aquifer storage and recovery, and chemical and pathogen transport in subsurface.
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Aris P. Georgakakos
Dr. Aris P. Georgakakos holds an engineering Diploma from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and Masters and Ph. D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Georgakakos is currently a Professor at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech, Head of the Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Water Resources Program, and Director of the Georgia Water Resources Institute. Dr. Georgakakos’ research and technology transfer activities aim to develop and implement prototypical information and decision support systems for integrated water resources assessment, planning, and management. These systems combine data from conventional and remote sources, GIS, and models from various scientific and engineering disciplines (including climate, hydrology, agricultural science, water resources, wetland and river ecology, hydro-thermal power systems, economics, statistics, and operations research). Dr. Georgakakos has been involved in several world regions and his decision support systems are currently used for river basin planning and management in the Southeastern US, California, East Africa, Brazil, Jordan, Greece, and China. His research has been sponsored by U.S. and foreign organizations including the US Geological Survey, US Army Corps of Engineers, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Bank, US and European Aid Agencies, and several domestic and foreign electrical utilities. Dr. Georgakakos has published extensively and is currently an Associate Editor for the Advances in Water Resources Journal and the Journal of Hydrology. Dr. Georgakakos has recently been appointed an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and is co-director of the AWARE Masters program, a water resources graduate program jointly offered by Georgia Tech and the University of Pretoria.
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Michael Wong
Michael Wong is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and the Department of Chemistry, at Rice University. He received his B.S. from Caltech (1994), and M.S. (1997) and Ph.D. (2000) from MIT, all in Chemical Engineering. He did his post-doc at UC Santa Barbara in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, before arriving at Rice in 2001. Prof. Wong's research group is engaged in research at the interface of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, and Materials Science, with the central theme of functional nanoparticle-based materials. His team of post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate students is interested in scalable nanoparticle synthesis and self-assembly chemistries, and nanoparticle materials designed for applications in industrial and environmental catalysis, encapsulation, and medicine. His research in designing 100-fold more active nanoparticle catalysts for groundwater cleanup; in synthesizing cheaper quantum dots; and in discovering the most simple microcapsule synthesis method yet, has received attention from Scientific American, Chemistry and Engineering News, and New Scientist, among others. Recent awards include the 3M Nontenured Faculty Award, the Richard Smalley-Bob Curl Innovation Award, the 2006 South Texas Section AIChE Best Applied Paper Award, a 2006 MIT TR35 Young Innovator Award, the 2006 AIChE Nanoscale Science and Engineering Young Investigator Award, and a 2007 Smithsonian Magazine Young Innovator Award.
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(Neal) Tai-Shung Chung
(Neal) Tai-Shung Chung is a Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at National U of Singapore (NUS). He is also a Fellow of Singapore-MIT Alliance and an adjunct Chair Professor at Taiwan’s Chung Yuan Christian University. Prior to joining NUS in 1995, he has worked for Hoechst Celanese for 13 years in New Jersey. In 2005-2007, he worked as a Senior Consultant for Hyflux (Singapore), led and built its membrane research team. He was a co-inventor of Hyflux Kristal 600 ultrafiltration hollow fiber membranes which has been commercialized worldwide. Prof Chung has set up a world class membrane research and has made NUS internationally known for its membrane research on water, energy, pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. He has more than 60 patents and has published more than 300 peer-review journal papers. Prof Chung is an Editorial Board Member of 15 journals including the Journal of Membrane Science, Desalination, Separation and PurDification Reviews, Chemical Engineering Journal, Polymer Engineering and Science, Journal of Applied Polymer Science. He is one of the pioneers in Thermotropic Liquid Crystalline Polymers. Prof Chung has edited a book entitled ‘Thermotropic Liquid Crystal Polymers’, published by CRC Press, in 2001.
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Michael Shapiro
Michael Shapiro joined the Office of Water as the Deputy Assistant Administrator in November 2002. Prior to that, he was the Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER). He has been in that position since February 1997, with a brief nine months as Acting Assistant Administrator during the transition between Administrations. Before that Mr. Shapiro was the Director of the Office of Solid Waste, where he had served since November 1993. Prior to that, Mr. Shapiro served first as Deputy Assistant Administrator and then as Acting Assistant Administrator in EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, where he directed implementation of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. From 1980 to 1989, Mr. Shapiro held a variety of positions in the Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances, where one of his responsibilities was developing EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory.
Mr. Shapiro has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Harvard. He has also taught in the public policy program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
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Fabien Cousteau – 2008 Eric Walker Lecturer
Fabien Cousteau, a third-generation ocean explorer and filmmaker, shares his famous father’s and grandfather’s love of deep sea adventure. As a boy he dove for the first time when he was only four years old, a custom tank had to be made to fit his body. By the time Fabien was seven, he had begun accompanying his father, Jean-Michel, and grandfather, Jacques, on expeditions, his first to Papua New Guinea. When Fabien turned 12, he began joining the crew of his grandfather’s ships Calypso and Alcyone on every break from school.
As an adult, Fabien took time to study economics and worked in marketing to try his hand on land. But the call back to the sea was strong and he returned to carrying on the Cousteau legacy of ocean adventure and environmental education. He looks forward to exposing a new audience to the thrills and lessons of the ocean. And, it doesn’t hurt that People Magazine named Fabien the “Sexiest Man of the Sea” in 2002.
This young Cousteau’s latest oceanic obsession is sharks--understanding and protecting them. Fabien says sharks are terribly misunderstood to be viscous man-eaters and this attitude is contributing to their demise.
Fabien’s first shark film was a documentary for the National Geographic Channel titled Attacks of the Mystery Shark. The film explores a series of shark attacks off of the East Coast of the United States and clears up some misconceptions about those attacks.
In November 2005, CBS television aired Fabien Cousteau’s documentary, a special titled Mind of a Demon. The program broke new ground in its look at Great White sharks. Fabien, with the help of a large crew, created a 14-foot, 1,200 pound shark submarine for the show. The sub, named “Troy,” looks just like a real Great White shark and moves among giant sharks without any disruption. Fabien controls Troy from inside the sub and shoots film from the subs many hidden cameras.
He is also playing a key role in his father’s PBS series: Jean-Michel Cousteau Ocean Adventures. He is an Assistant Producer and a member of the dive team. Most recently, Fabien and his sister Celine joined their father in the national marine sanctuary around the United States for a show titled America’s Underwater Treasures, exploring all 14 national marine sanctuaries in the U.S.; Return to the Amazon, an adventure he first began at age 14; and Sea Ghosts, a rare look at the white beluga whale.
Fabien has recently inked a deal for his own television documentary series for a soon-to-be-announced network. He is also a consultant to Samsonite on its new, rugged luggage product line called “Outlab.”
When Fabien is not traveling for work or play, he lives in New York City with his dog Heidi. |
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