Appendix B
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff
Danny D. Reible (NAE) is currently the Donovan Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair at Texas Tech University. He previously served as Director of the multi-university consortium, the Hazardous Substance Research Center South and Southwest (1995-2007), while at Louisiana State University and as the Bettie Margaret Smith Chair of Environmental Health Engineering (2004-2013) and director of the Center for Research in Water Resources (2011-2013) at the University of Texas. Dr. Reible was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2005 for his work in identifying management approaches for contaminated sediments. He has led the development of in-situ sediment capping and has evaluated its applicability to a wide range of contaminants and settings, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from fuels, manufactured gas plants and creosote manufacturing facilities, polychlorinated biphenyls, and metals. His current research activities are focused on sustainable water management and the assessment and remediation of contaminated sites. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received his B.S. from Lamar University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
Jonathan D. Arthur is the State Geologist of Florida and Director of the Florida Geological Survey, a division of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Dr. Arthur received his B.S. and Ph.D. from Florida State University and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. He has served as past president of the Association of American State Geolo-
gists and the Florida Association of Professional Geologists, and presently serves on the Florida Board of Professional Geologists. He also served on numerous committees related to restoration of the Florida Everglades. His research has involved aspects of hydrogeology and hydrogeochemistry, including hydrogeologic framework mapping, aquifer vulnerability modeling, and aquifer storage and recovery, the latter with emphasis on water-rock interactions and fate of metals and metalloids during variable oxidation-reduction conditions. Dr. Arthur was a member of the Academies’ Committee on Sustainable Underground Storage of Recoverable Water.
M. Eric Benbow is an associate professor of entomology at Michigan State University. His research involves basic and applied multiple-scale studies on the biology and ecology of aquatic ecosystems, how terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are coupled, the influence of human activities on those processes, and microbe-insect interactions in aquatic systems and carrion decomposition. Specific projects include the ecology of microbial-invertebrate interactions and their role in mycobacterial disease emergence in West Africa; microbial-insect carrion interaction networks in watersheds of southeast Alaska; watershed biomonitoring; and carrion decomposition with applications in forensics, including human postmortem microbiome studies. He has studied water withdrawal and watershed development in the tropics, including monitoring how invertebrate communities respond to these impacts. Dr. Benbow has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization on Buruli ulcer, the Republic of Palau for stream bioassessment, and the New Jersey Forensic Science Commission, Forensic Anthropology and Associated Forensic Specialties Sub-Committee; as an expert witness in a contested case involving Hawaiian streams; and as an Executive Committee member and former president of the North American Forensic Entomology Association. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in biology from the University of Dayton.
Robin K. Craig is the William H. Leary Professor of Law at the University of Utah College of Law. Her research focuses on “all things water,” especially the impact of climate change on freshwater resources and the oceans and the intersection of water and energy law. She has just published a water law textbook, Modern Water Law: Private Property, Public Rights, and Environmental Protections, and authored the chapter on the Endangered Species Act and the chapter on constitutional takings, both of which prominently featured cases and commentary from the Edwards Aquifer. Dr. Craig previously taught at the Lewis & Clark School of Law; Western New England College School of Law in Springfield, Massachusetts; Indiana University-Indianapolis School of Law; and the Florida State University College of Law in Tallahassee, Florida. She served on three successive Acad-
emies’ committees on the Clean Water Act and the Mississippi River. She is also active in the American Bar Association’s Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources, where she just completed a three-year term on the Executive Council and where she currently serves as Co-Chair of the Water Resource Committee. She received her BA from Pomona College, her M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, her Ph.D. in English literature from UC Santa Barbara, and her J.D. from Lewis and Clark College.
K. David Hambright is a professor of biology and Director of Environmental Studies at the University of Oklahoma. During the past decade his research has centered on the ecology, evolution, and management of the invasive and toxigenic golden alga, Prymnesium parvum, in lakes and rivers in Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He has recently begun a new long-term research effort aimed at coupling satellite-based remote sensing, digital field photography, and long-term water quality monitoring data on Oklahoman lakes in the effort to develop real-time monitoring capabilities aimed at ensuring public safety on the many public-access recreational lakes in the state. His expertise includes research in climate change and water quality interactions, wetland restoration and habitat and species conservation, paleolimnology, ecosystem modeling, and biodiversity, as well as experience in working with diverse research and modeling teams, interest groups, and stakeholders in politically sensitive systems. He received his B.S. in biology from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, his M.S. in biology from Texas Christian University, and his Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University.
Lora A. Harris is an associate professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, based at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. She is an estuarine ecologist who applies field and modeling approaches to address important questions regarding nutrient dynamics, primary production, and ecosystem structure and function in a range of estuarine ecosystems. She is interested in climate impacts on estuaries and lagoons, with a particular focus in salt marsh and sea grass ecosystems. Some of her most recent work has involved participatory modeling efforts involving stakeholders and managers seeking solutions to improve water quality and restore seagrasses in Delmarva coastal lagoons and a collaboration with wastewater engineers to understand the restoration trajectories of hypoxic estuaries. Dr. Harris works closely with state and regional agencies in both a research and an advisory capacity. She received her B.S. from Smith College and her Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island.
Timothy K. Kratz is the director of Trout Lake Station and the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently
on a rotation at the National Science Foundation where he is serving as a program officer in the NEON Science and Macrosystems Biology program in the Biological Sciences Directorate. His research interests include the long-term, regional ecology of lakes; metabolism and carbon dynamics of lakes; land-groundwater-surface water interactions; global patterns in lake dynamics through development of the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network. He has served on four Academies’ committees, including the Committee on Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research. He earned his B.S. in botany from the University of Wisconsin, his M.S in ecology and behavioral biology from the University of Minnesota, and his Ph.D. in botany from the University of Wisconsin.
Andrew J. Long is a research hydrologist and the groundwater specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, Washington Water Science Center. His work has involved development and computer coding of mathematical models to understand and quantify dual-porosity flow and transport of solutes and heat in karst aquifers, such as the Edwards. Inverse modeling and uncertainty assessment in modeling has been an important component of his research program. His current research involves groundwater age dating, lumped-parameter models, aquifer classification, hydrochemical evaluation, heat transport, and groundwater recharge, using such methods as dye tracing, age-dating tracers, geophysical methods, and hydraulic aquifer testing. Prior to coming to the USGS, Dr. Long worked for the South Dakota Water Department to simulate groundwater flow in the karstic Madison aquifer using MODFLOW, and he worked as a consultant conducting GIS analysis and groundwater modeling with MODFLOW related to a proposed low-level nuclear waste site in Boyd County, Nebraska, and to assess ammonia contamination for Terra Nitrogen in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa. He recently served as an adjunct assistant professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, where he received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D., all in geological engineering.
Jayantha Obeysekera is the chief modeler at the South Florida Water Management District, where he established and managed a group of about 60 modelers covering hydrologic, hydrodynamic, water quality, and ecological disciplines. He has more than 25 years of experience practicing water resources engineering with emphasis on both surface water and groundwater modeling, and implications of climate variability in planning and operation of complex water resources systems. He was a co-principal investigator for a National Science Foundation–funded project on the investigation of the tsunami impacts on coastal water resources in Sri Lanka. Dr. Obeysekera also served as an external agency member to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to review post-Katrina hydrologic modeling of the greater New Orleans metropolitan area. He has served on three Academies’ committees,
including the Committee on Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta, which had a Habitat Conservation Plan as its central focus. Presently, he is serving as a member of the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee. Dr. Obeysekera holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Sri Lanka, M. Eng. from University of Roorkee, India, and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from Colorado State University. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Florida and has been appointed as an affiliate research professor at the Florida Atlantic University.
Kenneth A. Rose is the E. L. Abraham Distinguished Professor in Louisiana environmental studies at Louisiana State University. His current research is focused on modeling population dynamics of fish and aquatic food webs, and how they respond to a variety of types of stressors, including changes in water flows and quality, lethal and sublethal effects of contaminants, hypoxia, alteration of physical habitat, and climate change. He recently published a model of the population dynamics of the delta smelt, which is a listed species in the California Delta that is a center of controversy about how much water can be pumped out of the system for irrigation and water supply, and he has also published on lower trophic level (algae and micro and macro zooplankton) food web dynamics. Dr. Rose was a member of review teams for several biological opinions involving delta smelt and salmon. He has served on two Academies’ committees, including the Committee on Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta that evaluated the mitigation and conservation actions of biological opinions and the science underlying the short-term and long-term environmental and water usage decision-making of the system. He received his B.S. from SUNY Albany and his M.S and Ph.D. in fisheries science from the University of Washington.
Laura Toran is the Weeks Chair in Environmental Geology at Temple University in Philadelphia. She has 30 years of experience in modeling and monitoring groundwater. Her recent research activities include using karst springs to understand transport in karst, monitoring urban stormwater and streams, and developing hydrogeophysical techniques to predict groundwater-surface water interaction. She teaches classes in groundwater hydrology including modeling with MODFLOW. She served on the Academies’ Committee on Opportunities for Accelerating Characterization and Treatment of Waste at DOE Nuclear Weapons Sites. Dr. Toran received her B.A. in geology from Macalester College and her Ph.D. in geology from the University of Wisconsin.
Greg D. Woodside is the executive director of Planning & Natural Resources at Orange County Water District. Mr. Woodside has 25 years of experience in
water resources management and hydrogeology. Mr. Woodside is a registered geologist and certified hydrogeologist in California. Mr. Woodside oversees the Planning and Watershed Management Department and the Natural Resources Department at the Orange County Water District. Staff in these departments prepare the District’s environmental documents, permit applications, Groundwater Management Plan, and Long-Term Facilities Plan, and conduct the District’s natural resource management, watershed planning, and recharge planning. In particular, he has evaluated conjunctive use and Aquifer Storage and Recovery projects in the Orange County Groundwater Basin, Central Basin, and San Gabriel Basins, including projects that would recharge up to 50,000 acre-feet per year of recycled and imported water. Methods used by Mr. Woodside to evaluate conjunctive use projects include integrated surface and groundwater budgets, flow path analysis, simple analytical models of groundwater flow, and complex three-dimensional numerical models. He holds a B.S. in geological sciences from California State University, Fullerton, and an M.S. in hydrology from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
STAFF
Laura J. Ehlers is a senior staff officer for the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Since joining the Academies in 1997, she has served as the study director for more than 20 committees, including the Committee to Review the New York City Watershed Management Strategy, the Committee on Bioavailability of Contaminants in Soils and Sediment, the Committee on Assessment of Water Resources Research, the Committee on Reducing Stormwater Discharge Contributions to Water Pollution, and the Committee to Review EPA’s Economic Analysis of Final Water Quality Standards for Nutrients for Lakes and Flowing Waters in Florida. Ehlers has periodically consulted for EPA’s Office of Research Development regarding their water quality research programs. She received her B.S. from the California Institute of Technology, majoring in biology and engineering and applied science. She earned both an M.S.E. and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.