C
BIOGRAPHIES OF PLANNING COMMITTEE, SPEAKERS, AND STAFF
JIM LESTER (Committee Chair) is currently President of the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC). Previously, he served as vice president and as director of HARC’s Environment Group where he was responsible for developing and implementing projects to make more sustainable our management of water, air and biological resources. From1975 to 2002 he was a faculty member and administrator in the University of Houston System, where he held administrative positions at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, as a dean, associate vice president, and director of the Environmental Institute of Houston. His scientific work is grounded in ecological and population genetics, which he has applied to projects dealing with biodiversity and development of new species for sustainable aquaculture. Dr. Lester has worked in Asia and Latin America on aquaculture and fishery development projects. He is currently engaged in projects that analyze compilations of datasets from multiple sources to obtain new insights for watershed or landscape management. Dr. Lester also serves in an advisory capacity to a variety of organizations. He is past president of the Texas Environmental Education Partnership. He serves as the chair of the Monitoring and Research Committee of the Galveston Bay Estuary Program, and on advisory committees for the Texas Sea Grant Program and the Texas Environmental Research Consortium. Dr. Lester holds a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Texas at Austin.
PHILIP BERKE is professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. He is deputy director of the Institute for the Environment (IE), director of the Center for Sustainable Community Design of IE, and adjunct professor in the Curriculum of Ecology at the University of North Carolina. He is currently a collaborative research scholar of the International Global Change Institute in New Zealand. The central focus of his research is to develop a deeper understanding of the connections between human settlements and the natural environment. His research seeks to explore the causes of land use decisions and their consequences on the environmental, social, and economic systems of human settlements. He is a member of the Steering Committee on Disaster
Resilience, Vulnerability, and Risk Reduction of the National Science Foundation. He recently served as a member of the Committee on Disaster Research and the Social Sciences of the National Research Council which produced Facing Hazards and Disasters: Understanding Human Dimensions (2006). He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Council of the French Association of Disaster Prevention, as well as numerous other scientific and environmental organizations. Dr. Berke’s current research projects address domestic and international issues in the areas of environmental impacts of urbanization, land use planning, natural hazard mitigation, environmental justice, and sustainable development. His research has been supported by the United Nations Division of Humanitarian Affairs, U.S. National Science Foundation, New Zealand Foundation for Research Science and Technology, Federal Emergency Management Agency, North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He is the lead co-author of Urban Land Use Planning (University of Illinois Press, Fifth Edition, 2006), which focuses on integrating principles of sustainable communities into urban form. He received his Ph.D. in urban and regional science from Texas A&M University.
RICHARD E. BISSELL has been executive director of the Policy and Global Affairs division of the National Research Council since 1998. Prior to coming to the National Research Council, he headed the organizing secretariat of the World Commission on Dams, and earlier was chair of the Inspection Panel, an independent accountability mechanism for the board of directors of the World Bank. During the years between 1986 and 1993, he was assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, first as head of the Bureau of Policy and Program Coordination; and later as head of the Bureau of Research and Development. His B.A. is from Stanford, and his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
JIM BLACKBURN is a partner in Blackburn Carter, P.C., a firm devoted to environmental law and planning. Mr. Blackburn is also a professor in the Practice of Environmental Law in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University, teaching courses in sustainable development and environmental law. He serves as director of the Interdisciplinary Minor in Energy and Water Sustainability at Rice and is a faculty associate for the SSPEED Center, studying “Lessons Learned from Hurricane Ike” as well as leading a course/project titled “Measuring Sustainability: Project Houston.” His current caseload includes litigation over the future of the whooping crane on the Texas Coast and opposition to permits needed to enable uranium mining in Goliad County. Mr. Blackburn is active in community issues
and is a co-founder of Houston Wilderness, the Matagorda Bay Foundation and the Galveston Bay Foundation. He was the recipient of the Barbara C. Jordan Community Advocate Award presented by Texas Southern University in 2007, the National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation in 2001, and the Bob Eckhardt Lifetime Achievement Award for coastal preservation efforts from the General Land Office of the State of Texas in 1998. In 2004 Texas A&M press published his manuscript The Book of Texas Bays, which focuses upon the environmental health of Texas bays and discusses various facts and issues. In 2009 Blackburn co-authored a compilation of art and poems Birds: A Collection of Verse and Vision. Mr. Blackburn received both a B.A. in history and a J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.S. in environmental science from Rice University.
DOMINIC A. BROSE (Staff) is a program officer for the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program (STS) at the National Academies. Prior to joining STS, Dr. Brose was with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies where he collaborated on science policy reports sponsored by the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) that addressed the potential for adverse health effects from exposure of select military personnel to environmental contaminants. Previously, he was an environmental scientist at ToxServices LLC, where he reviewed product formulations for EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE) program, a third-party service provided to EPA that evaluated product formulations against human health and environmental screening criteria. Dr. Brose received his M.S. and Ph.D. in environmental soil chemistry from the University of Maryland, and his B.S. in natural resources and environmental science from Purdue University.
ARMANDO CARBONELL, senior fellow and chairman of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, is an urban planner. His areas of expertise include city and regional planning, property rights and regulation, and land use and the environment. He also teaches planning at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to his appointment to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Mr. Carbonell was the founding executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, a regional planning and land use regulatory agency. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Mr. Carbonell received his A.B. degree from Clark University and was a doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University and a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University.
PEGGY CRIST is the director of the Office of Planning and Program Development at the Federal Transit Administration. Ms. Crist has thirty
years of experience in the project planning, environmental review and grant development programs of the Federal Transit Administration. Ms. Crist received her bachelor’s degree from Butler University and her master’s degree in urban and regional affairs from the University of Texas at Arlington.
GLEN T. DAIGGER (Committee Member) (NAE) is senior vice president with CH2M HILL in Englewood, Colorado. He serves as chief wastewater process engineer and is responsible for wastewater process engineering on both municipal and industrial wastewater treatment projects on a firm wide basis. Dr. Daigger is the first Technical Fellow for the firm, an honor that recognizes the leadership he provides for CH2M HILL and for the profession in developing and implementation of new wastewater treatment technology. He is also the chief technology officer for the firm’s Civil Infrastructure Client Group, which includes the firm’s water, transportation, and operations businesses. From 1994-1996, Dr. Daigger served as professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Systems Engineering at Clemson University. Dr. Daigger is a registered professional engineer in the states of Indiana and Arizona, and a board certified environmental engineer. Dr. Daigger received his B.Sc.E. degree, his M.S.C.E. degree, and his Ph.D. degree, all in environmental engineering, from Purdue University.
LISA GONZALEZ is a research scientist with the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC). Her work focuses on the analysis and dissemination of data related to the health and productivity of bays and estuaries, coastal watersheds, and the Gulf of Mexico. Ms. Gonzalez manages projects and conducts research related to various coastal issues including coastal water quality, fish and wildlife populations, invasive species, habitat characterization, freshwater inflows, and seafood safety. Ms. Gonzalez has experience managing and analyzing large environmental monitoring data sets, developing estuarine indicators, conducting status and trends analyses of estuarine natural resources and resource use, and disseminating science-based information to interested stakeholders and the public. Her recent work includes the State of the Bay: A Characterization of the Galveston Bay Ecosystem, Third Edition; the Galveston Bay Status and Trends Project; the Quiet Invasion Galveston Bay Invasive Species Field Guide Series; and the development of an Invasion Potential Scorecard for Aquarium Species. Lisa joined HARC in 2002 after working as a research associate for the Environmental Institute of Houston at the University of Houston, Clear Lake. Prior to that, Ms. Gonzalez served as operations manager at the Institute of Marine Life Sciences at Texas A&M University at Galveston. Lisa earned a Master of Science degree in Environmental Management
from the University of Houston, Clear Lake in 2000. She received a bachelor of science degree in marine fisheries from Texas A&M University at Galveston in 1992.
WINIFRED J. HAMILTON (Committee Member) is a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, with joint appointments in medicine and neurosurgery, and is director of Baylor’s Environmental Health Service in the Section of General Internal Medicine. She also holds an adjunct faculty appointment at Rice University, where she teaches a course on environmental health, and is a certified Healthy Homes Specialist. Dr. Hamilton earned her graduate degrees from the University of Michigan, Rice University, and the Harvard School of Public Health, the latter in environmental health epidemiology. She has been or is principal investigator of more than 20 funded research projects in environmental health, and is author or co-author of more than 45 peer-reviewed journal articles, several books, and approximately 20 reports. Dr. Hamilton has been program director of three regional pediatric environmental health symposia and is founder and until recently co-chair of the Texas Medical Center Sustainability Advisory Council. She has served on the boards of the Alliance for Healthy Homes, Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, Mothers for Clean Air, and Urban Harvest, and currently serves on the board of directors of Houston Tomorrow. She has also served on the Regional Air Quality Planning Committee of the Houston-Galveston Area Council and on the Clean Air Task Force of the Greater Houston Partnership. She speaks regularly to various academic and community groups on environmental health topics, with over 100 presentations since 2000. She also regularly serves on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is a reviewer for the American Journal of Public Health. Dr. Hamilton has received numerous awards for her work in environmental health, including the U.S. EPA’s Children’s Environmental Health Champion Award, and was recently invited to speak to the President’s Cancer Panel on the role of environmental exposures. Her professional interests within environmental health are broad, with particular emphasis on geospatial modeling of hot spots of disproportionate exposure and/or health effects and on the education of health care professionals with regard to the importance of environmental exposures in their practices.
MARILU HASTINGS (Committee Member) is a program officer for the Energy Foundation and the environment program director for the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation. She is responsible for the philanthropic activities of these charities that currently involve supporting clean energy and climate change mitigation policies in Texas,
as well as Texas water policy. Prior to her current position Ms. Hastings was the director of climate programs for the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) where she was employed for twelve years. At HARC she specialized in examining the complex interactions between social, corporate and political behavior and environmental protection. She also focused on developing integrated research initiatives related to sustainability science. Ms. Hastings has over twenty years of experience analyzing an array of policy issues related to sustainable development, environmental protection, climate change, hazardous and solid waste management, water resources, market development for recycled products, and corporate sustainable development. She has worked in the public and independent sectors, as well as in collaboration with industry groups and companies. Ms. Hastings is a trustee of the Regional Endowment for Sustainability Science, a $30 million endowment established by George P. Mitchell in 2005. Ms. Hastings is on the science advisory board for the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago. She is co-chair of the advisory board for the Friends of Big Bend National Park. She is also on the board of directors of Living Word Lutheran Church in The Woodlands, Texas. Ms. Hastings earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin. She earned a B.A. in economics and political science from Duke University.
MARY ELLEN HYNES (Committee Member) is the director of research for the Infrastructure and Geophysical Division within the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) at the Department of Homeland Security. Before joining S&T in December 2006, Dr. Hynes spent 30 years as a researcher, rising to the position of technical director at the US Army Engineer R&D Center (ERDC). Her research focused on extreme loading of critical infrastructure. She obtained, with honors, her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
LESTER KING is a sustainability fellow in the Shell Center for Sustainability at Rice University. His research focus will be on developing the Houston Sustainability Indicators Program at Rice. He is an AICP-certified planner and holds LEED certification as well. His work experience includes consulting and planning for various projects at the local and regional levels. He has also produced multiple presentations and publications on sustainability at the local, regional and national levels. Dr. King has spent time researching sustainable development planning in Israel and Barbados, which included visiting with key
stakeholders in both countries. Dr. King was responsible for developing Houston’s first sustainable development indicators project in 2007. He holds a Ph.D. in urban planning and environmental policy from Texas Southern University.
STEPHEN KLINEBERG is a professor of sociology and the co-director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. A graduate of Haverford College near Philadelphia, Dr. Klineberg received an M.A. in psychopathology from the University of Paris and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard. After teaching at Princeton, he joined Rice University’s sociology department in 1972. The recipient of ten major teaching awards, including the George R. Brown Lifetime Award for Excellence in Teaching, he is a faculty associate and divisional advisor at Lovett College, where he twice served as Interim Master. In March 1982, he and his students initiated the annual Houston Area Survey, now in its 29th year of tracking changes in the demographic patterns, life experiences, attitudes, and beliefs of Harris County residents. The project has attracted great interest and generous support from foundations, corporations, and individuals in the wider Houston community and beyond. That support has made it possible not only to fund these professional surveys, but also to expand the research each year with additional interviews in Houston’s Anglo, African-American, and Latino communities. Co-author of The Present of Things Future: Explorations of Time in Human Experience, Dr. Klineberg has written numerous journal articles and research reports, and appears frequently on radio and television. He is also the founding co-director of Rice University’s Institute for Urban Research. Its mission is to provide a permanent home for the annual Houston Area Survey, stimulate other metropolitan research, sponsor educational programs, and engage in public outreach that advances understanding of pressing urban issues and fosters the development of more humane and sustainable cities.
CAROL LEWIS is director of the Center for Transportation Training & Research and associate professor in the Department of Transportation Studies at Texas Southern University. At Texas Southern Dr. Lewis teaches students the fundamentals of transportation and urban transportation issues and conducts operational and policy-related transportation research. In March 2008, Dr. Lewis was asked to serve as principal investigator for the university’s Petrochemical Transportation Security Center of Excellence. This multidisciplinary initiative conducts research to reduce the nation’s vulnerability to potential terrorist attacks in selected components of the surface transportation system. Since joining TSU in 1992, Dr. Lewis has conducted research for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) regarding regionalizing public
transit, smart growth, strategic planning and more. She has served as transportation advisor to former Houston Mayor Bill White and as chair of the Houston’s Planning Commission. Dr. Lewis holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Houston and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Iowa.
LISA LIN is the sustainability manager for the City of Houston, overseeing various environmental programs and initiatives for the city. Projects include the Houston Green Office Challenge, the city’s bike share program, benchmarking city buildings, and updating the GHG inventory reports. Before joining the Mayor’s staff, Ms. Lin was a program associate for ICLEI USA’s Climate Programs Division, assisting with the development of technical guidance and other resources for local government climate mitigation activities. She also served as the South Central Regional Associate, helping cities with climate action planning and local sustainability programs. Ms. Lin has also worked for a commercial architecture firm where she developed the company’s green building initiatives and continuing education program. She was the first in her office to attain her LEED Accredited Professional credential in 2006. Her extensive involvement with the local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council Emerging Professionals has led her to attain local and national recognition. Currently, she sits on the USGBC Emerging Professionals National Committee as the South Central Representative. She holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental design from Texas A&M University.
KATHERINE LORENZ was elected president of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation in January 2011. Before taking on this role, she served nearly three years as deputy director for the Institute for Philanthropy, whose mission is to increase effective philanthropy in the UK and internationally, and she now sits on the Institute’s board of directors. Prior to her work with the Institute for Philanthropy, Ms. Lorenz lived and worked in Oaxaca, Mexico for nearly six years where she co-founded Puente a la Salud Comunitaria, a non-profit organization working to eradicate malnutrition and advance food sovereignty in rural Oaxaca through the integration of amaranth into the local diet. She continues to be highly involved with Puente’s work as an active board member. Before founding Puente, she spent two summers living and working in rural, poor communities in Latin America with the volunteer program Amigos de las Américas and later served on their Program Committee and as a trustee of the Foundation for Amigos de las Americas. Additionally, she currently serves on the boards of directors of the Endowment for Regional Sustainability Science and the Amaranth Institute and formerly was a board member of Resource Generation.
Along with her family, Ms. Lorenz is a member of the Global Philanthropists Circle (through the Synergos Institute) and is an active participant in the GPC Next Generation subgroup. She sits on the Council on Foundations Committee on Family Philanthropy and serves on their 2012 Family Philanthropy Conference Planning Task Force. Ms. Lorenz holds a B.A. in economics and Spanish from Davidson College.
CATHERINE MOSBACHER is president and CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future, a position she assumed in October 2008. Before coming to the Center, Ms. Mosbacher served as chair of the Joint City-County Commission on Children for Houston and Harris County, and as board chair of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (child and adult protective services, child care licensing, and prevention and intervention). She served as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center for eight years. She is the founder of BEAR, Be a Resource for CPS Kids, a nonprofit that provides help and hope to abused and neglected children. Ms. Mosbacher was legislative counsel to Texas Eastern Corporation and assistant counsel to the United States Senate Legislative Counsel in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia, and the Bar of Texas. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the Houston Area Women’s Center, St. Luke’s Health Charities, Houston Metropolitan YMCA, and the Alley Theatre. She is a graduate of the Center for Houston’s Future Leadership Forum, senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum, and a former trustee of St. John’s School. Honors include the Depelchin Award for Community Leadership, the Anti-Defamation League’s Torch of Liberty Award, and the Center for Public Policy Priorities Legacy Award.
MARINA S. MOSES (Staff) serves as the director for the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program (STS) in the Policy and Global Affairs division of the National Academies. In this capacity, she also serves as the director of the Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability. Under her leadership, the STS program issued the consensus report, Sustainability and the U.S. EPA, and has recently undertaken the multi-sponsored study, Sustainability Linkages in the Federal Government. Prior to joining the Academies, Dr. Moses served on the faculty of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, where she also directed the doctoral program and was the practicum coordinator for the graduate program. Dr. Moses was the recipient of the 2005 Pfizer Scholar in Public Health Award and has worked in emergency preparedness and communication with communities on public health issues. Previously, Dr. Moses held senior
scientific positions in the Environmental Management Division of the U.S. Department of Energy, where she worked on the development of a qualitative framework to assess hazardous and nuclear waste risks, and served as the senior health risk assessor in the New York City office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund Program. Dr. Moses received her bachelor of arts (chemistry) and her master of science (environmental health sciences) degrees from Case Western Reserve University. She received her doctorate of public health (environmental health sciences) from Columbia University School of Public Health.
JOHN NIELSEN-GAMMON (Committee Member) is a Regents Professor at Texas A&M University and is the Texas State Climatologist. Dr. Nielsen-Gammon conducts research on large-scale and local-scale meteorology, air pollution meteorology, drought monitoring and forecasting, and climate data quality. His air quality research includes field forecasting support, numerical simulation, and diagnostic analysis of ozone events in Houston and Dallas for the Texas Air Quality Studies in 2000 and 2005-6. He teaches courses in weather analysis, weather forecasting, climatology, and atmospheric dynamics, and writes the Climate Abyss blog hosted by the Houston Chronicle. Dr. Nielsen-Gammon received a Presidential Faculty Fellow award (now known as PECASE) from the National Science Foundation and the White House in 1996, a Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching at Texas A&M University from the Association of Former Students in 1996, was named a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in 2011, and received the 2011 Newsmaker Image Award from Texas A&M University. He is past president of the International Commission for Dynamical Meteorology and is past chair of the AMS Board on Higher Education. Dr. Nielsen-Gammon received an S.B. in earth and planetary sciences, an S.M. in Meteorology, and a Ph.D. in meteorology, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
HERMINIA PALACIO is the executive director of Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services (HCPHES), a post to which she was appointed in January 2003. In this role, Dr. Palacio applies a broad range of academic, clinical, and public policy experience to meet the diverse public health challenges of today. Dr. Palacio received her medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and completed her residency training at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Primary Care Internal Medicine Program at San Francisco General Hospital. After becoming a board certified internist, she obtained a master of public health, with an emphasis in epidemiology, from the University of California, Berkeley, School of
Public Health. She spent several years on the faculty of UCSF, where she served as principal investigator or co-investigator in several HIV epidemiology and health services research studies. She currently holds faculty appointments at the Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas School of Public Health. Dr. Palacio currently serves as chair of the Texas Public Health Coalition and previously served as president of the Texas Association of Local Health Officials and chair of the Harris County Healthcare Alliance. Her national activities include service as a member of the National Association of County and City Health Officials Board of Directors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee to the Director, the Board of Scientific Counselors for the CDC Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Prepositioned Medical Countermeasures for the Public. She was awarded the Excellence in Health Administration Award by the American Public Health Association in 2007 and was recently appointed by President Obama to serve on the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.
PATRICE PARSONS is the director of external affairs at ICLEI. In this role she is responsible for coordinating all fundraising activities including maintaining and developing new strategic relationships with potential partners, including existing foundations, private industry, and the federal government. Prior to this, Ms. Parsons was responsible for supporting all ICLEI members within Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas in furthering the momentum of greenhouse gas emission reductions within the region. Her previous experience in environmental and energy policy included marketing, governmental relations, development and finance. She also established the first industry-funded energy demonstration center focused on the commercialization of fuel cell technology at the Houston Advanced Research Center. Additionally, she was the previous associate deputy land commissioner at the Texas General Land Office. In that role, her responsibilities included the development of public/private partnerships and projects to advance the use of sustainable, clean energy transportation alternatives to improve air quality, and the promotion of economic development and energy security. She was also the director of the Texas State Energy Conservation office (SECO) where she was responsible for the management and distribution of approximately $200M in thirty-three different program areas while directing a staff of 45 employees. Ms. Parsons is the graduate of the University of Texas.
NATASHA PRUDENT is a health scientist with the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
Before joining CDC, Ms. Prudent studied global environmental health at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, graduating with her M.P.H. in May 2008. While at Emory, she did research in Malawi studying the efforts of a faith-based program in maintaining shallow wells. Her project used quantitative methods, such as GPS identification of water-points, and qualitative methods, such as interviewing program officers and well users, to gauge the functionality of wells built by the program.
WALTER G. PEACOCK (Committee Member) is director of the Hazards Reduction and Recovery Center, professor in landscape architecture and urban planning and in the Sustainable Coastal Margins Program and the Rodney L. Dockery Endowed Professor in Housing and the Homeless at Texas A&M University, College Station. His research focuses on natural hazards and disasters emphasizing social vulnerability and resiliency, evacuation, and the socio-political ecology of long-term recovery and mitigation. Much of his current research focuses on hazard mitigation planning and policies along the Texas coast, long-term recovery following Hurricane Ike, and conceptualization and measurement of resiliency. He has conducted research in the United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Italy, India, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, and the US Virgin Islands. Various agencies have funded his research, including the National Science Foundation, Sea Grant, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He has authored or co-authored two books and over ninety chapters, articles, papers, and technical reports. His published articles have appeared in a variety of journals including American Sociological Review, Journal of the American Planning Association, Natural Hazards Review, Disasters, the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Landscape and Urban Planning and Ekistics.
JOHN RANDOLPH is professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech, where he has been on the faculty since 1979. He has a Ph.D. in civil engineering from Stanford and a B.M.E. in mechanical engineering from Minnesota. Dr. Randolph was director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research from 1988-1995, department head of urban affairs and planning from 1995-2003, and Director of the School of Public and International Affairs from 2003-2008. He has authored more than 100 articles and reports and two textbooks, Environmental Land Use Planning and Management (2nd edition, 2012) and Energy for Sustainability: Technology, Planning, Policy (with Gilbert Masters, 2008). He received the national 2006 William R. and June Dale Prize for excellence in Urban and Regional
Planning and the statewide Virginia Energy Award in 1992 for his energy research.
BRENDA M. REYES started working with the city of Houston Department of Health and Human Services in 2001and now she is chief of the Bureau of Community & Children Environmental Health. She obtained her medical degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Mexico and her master’s degree in public health at Florida International University, Florida. During this time and under her leadership she combined the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention and Lead Based Paint programs into one lead program with indoor air, asthma, pest, pesticides, unintentional injuries, non-smoking ordinance enforcement, ambulances and funeral homes combining two Bureau’s into one, cutting costs and adding value with an efficient delivery of holistic services to the citizens in the home environment and creating the perfect platform for healthy housing in Houston. Dr. Reyes has successfully been awarded over 20 grants from EPA, CDC and HUD, including for her collaboration at the Superfund Site MDI, Screening Targeted Areas at Risk (STAR) Program, and with Beyond Translation and Beyond the Forum. Also, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Control Hazard presented her with a Recognition Award for Leadership and Commitment, and the National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition award for Healthy Homes Champion (only four in the nation). She is a member of the National Advisory Committee for Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention (ACCLPP), National HUD Grantees Association Board Member, Houston Healthy Homes Coalition Co-Chair, Houston Consolidated Plan Advisory Committee Member, Texas Gulf Coast Asthma Coalition Chairperson, and others. She is co-director of the Texas Healthy Homes Training Center in Houston and Mentor of several lead programs nationwide and had worked internationally in Honduras and Costa Rica.
DYLAN RICHMOND (Staff) is a research assistant for the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program (STS) at the National Academies. Before joining the Academies in the fall of 2010, he attended Georgetown University and graduated with a B.A. in economics in May 2010. While at Georgetown, Dylan was an editor for The Georgetown Voice.
JENNIFER RONK is an environmental manager at the Houston Advanced Research Center with more than 18 years of experience addressing a wide range of energy and environmental issues, including clean energy and climate change law and policy, and soil and groundwater contaminant investigation and remediation. She has
published on international investment law and its effect on renewable energy deployment. She has also presented at notation conferences on innovative hexavalent chromium remediation technologies. She is a former member of the Interstate Technology Regulatory Commission and a current member of the Renewable Energy and International Law (REIL) Network. Since joining HARC in 2009, she has worked on issues related to solar energy, hydrogen and fuel cell technology, and other climate change issues.
JEFF TAEBEL (Committee Member), FAICP, is director of community and environmental planning at the Houston-Galveston Area Council, where he oversees the agency’s community and economic development, disaster recovery, environmental planning, livable communities, socioeconomic modeling and sustainable development programs. He has 28 years of experience in urban and regional planning, including 24 in his current position. Actively involved in community service, professional development and planning education, Mr. Taebel is a former president of the Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association and in 2008 was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Mr. Taebel received a master of urban planning from Texas A&M University and a B.S. in life sciences from the University of Nebraska.
RIVES TAYLOR is a Texas-licensed, practicing architect and educator. As a principal, he leads Gensler’s firm-wide Sustainable Design Task Force precipitating several successful sustainable building projects, including several recent LEED Platinum projects. The Gensler Task Force is actively involved in education about sustainability, both inside the firm and to peers and clients. He lectures at schools of architecture at Rice University and the University of Houston. In addition, he is on the convention program committees for the USGBC, Texas Society of Architects and serves as a committee chair of the AIA Education Committee.
BRUCE WILCOXON (Committee Member) is the director of climate change for ConocoPhillips, a position he has held since 2007. Prior to this assignment he served in the positions of climate change advisor for ConocoPhillips Canada in Calgary, Alberta and as sustainable development coordinator within the Corporate Health, Safety and Environmental group in Houston Texas. Mr. Wilcoxon began his career in the oil industry as an exploration geologist with British Petroleum, joining ConocoPhillips in 2001. Mr. Wilcoxon holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in geology and an M.B.A. degree from the University of Texas. He currently resides in Houston with his wife and two children.
