BOARD ON AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BOARD

Presenter and Panelist Biosketches (in speaking order)

MODERATOR

Jay Famiglietti is a hydrologist, a professor and the Director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, where he holds the Canada 150 Research Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing, before moving to Saskatchewan, he served as the Senior Water Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the Institute of Technology. From 2013 through 2018, he was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the California State Water Boards. From 2001 to 2016, Jay was a professor of Earth System Science and of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, where he was the Founding Director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling. Before joining UCI in 2001, he was on the faculty of the Geological Sciences Department at the University of at Austin, where he helped launch the program in climate and the UT Environmental Science Institute. Jay and his team have been researching and communicating about water and climate change — in academics, in business, in government and to the general public — for over 30 years. Jay is a frequent speaker and he is an avid writer for the public. His research and commentary are often featured in the international news media, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and The Economist, and in network, cable and public television news. Jay is a regular guest on National Public Radio, BBC Radio and other public radio shows. He is a member of the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

PRESENTERS

Matthew Rodell is the Associate Deputy Director of Earth Sciences for Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. This division comprises more than 400 scientists and engineers within five laboratories involved in remote sensing and numerical modeling of land and ocean processes and related applications. From 2012 to 2019, Dr. Rodell was Chief of the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory. He is a member of the science team for NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On (GRACE-FO) mission and is co-lead of the Mass Change Designated Observable Study's Research and Application Team. He leads the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) and projects focused on monitoring groundwater storage changes, mapping and forecasting drought/wetness, and detecting climate related variations in the water cycle. Dr. Rodell is a past Associate Editor for the Journal of Hydrology and a current Editor for the Journal of Hydrometeorology. He has also chaired the Hydrology Program for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting (2009-2011) and led various national and international scientific working groups. He received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2006, a NASA/GSFC Earth Science Achievement Award in 2007, a Robert H. Goddard Award for Exceptional Achievement in

Science in 2011, and an Arthur S. Flemming Award for outstanding federal service in the area of basic science in 2015. Dr. Rodell has more than 120 peer-reviewed publications and appears on Clarivate Web of Science's 2018, 2019, and 2020 lists of Highly Cited Researchers. He holds a B.S. in environmental science from the College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in geological sciences from the University of Texas at Austin.

Bridget Scanlon is a senior research scientist in the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is head of the Sustainable Water Resources Program. Her research is on groundwater depletion and groundwater recharging, and of the effects of climate change and land usage patterns on groundwater. Her work has included the use of GRACE satellite data to compare drought conditions in Texas and California. Scanlon is originally from County Kerry in Ireland. She earned a bachelor's degree in geology at Trinity College Dublin in 1980, and worked with the Geological Survey of Ireland before moving to the US for graduate study. She earned a master's degree at the in 1983, with a master's thesis based on her fieldwork in the basin of the River Maine in Ireland, and completed a Ph.D. at the University of in 1985, studying the karst landscape of the inner Bluegrass region of Kentucky. She joined the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin in 1987. Since 2004, she has also held an adjunct faculty position at the University of Nebraska. Scanlon became a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2005, and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2015. She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 "for contributions to the evaluation of and depletion".

Debra Perrone is an Assistant Professor of UCSB’s Environmental Studies Program. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of California, Debra was a postdoctoral research scholar at Stanford University with a dual appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Woods Institute for the Environment. She received her PhD in Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University in 2014 and was awarded first honors as the Graduate School’s Founder’s Medalist. Debra has been awarded fellowships from the Environmental Protection Agency and National Science Foundation for her work studying the growing water scarcity challenges and tradeoffs facing society. Deb integrates research methods from engineering, physical science, and law to inform water sustainability and policy; she uses a wide-spectrum of outlets to disseminate her research, including peer-reviewed journals, policy briefs, and interactive-online dashboards. Debra is a co-author of a textbook for undergraduate students that focuses on the challenges and opportunities surrounding our global water resources by providing a foundation in water science and policy.

Megan Konar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on the intersection of water, food, and trade. She has worked on quantifying the amount of nonrenewable groundwater that is incorporated into agricultural commodities produced in the United States, transferred within the country, and exported internationally. Megan’s approach is interdisciplinary, drawing from hydrology, environmental science, and economics. Megan holds a PhD and an M.S. both in Civil and Environmental engineering from Princeton University (2012), an M.S. in Water Science and Technology, Policy, and Management from the University of Oxford, and a B.S. in Conservation and Resource Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

PANELISTS:

Alex Tait is The Geographer at National Geographic Society. In addition to serving as ambassador from National Geographic to groups with interests in geography, he is a practical and historical cartographer and is responsible for maintaining Nat Geo’s Map Policy, which details the Society shows the world in maps. Alex has been involved in a wide range of collaborations with researchers studying different ecosystems across diverse geographies of the world. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a M.S. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, both in geography.

Kirsten James is the Program Director for Water at Ceres, a nonprofit organization that pursues market- and policy-based solutions to the world’s sustainability challenges. Kirsten directs Ceres' strategy for mobilizing leading investors and companies to address the sustainability risks facing freshwater and agriculture systems. Previously, Kirsten served for five years as the director of California policy and partnerships to engage companies and investors in support of public policies that call for sustainable water management, clean energy and greenhouse gas emissions reductions in California. Kirsten has been a regular blogger in publications such as Water Deeply, providing commentary on water policy and corporate water stewardship. In her personal capacity, she serves as an executive board member on the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters and a committee appointee for the Los Angeles County Safe, Clean Water Program. Prior to Ceres, Kirsten worked for nine years at the Santa Monica-based environmental group, Heal the Bay, as their Science and Policy Director. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and a master's degree in environmental science and management from the Bren School at University of California Santa Barbara.

Charles Iceland is Global Director, Water (Interim) with the World Resources Institute’s Food, Forests, Water, and the Ocean Program. In addition to overseeing the Global Water Team, Charles is implementing the Water, Peace, and Security Partnership with several European and American partner organizations. As part of this project, he and his team have developed a machine learning-based conflict prediction tool that leverages information on environmental, political, economic, social, and demographic conditions worldwide. The partnership was awarded the 2020 Luxembourg Peace Prize for Outstanding Environmental Peace. Charles previously directed the Aqueduct project at WRI and co- developed the concept for the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, which maps a variety of global water risks and has become the premier online tool for global water risk assessment and prioritization. He also developed the concepts for Aqueduct Floods and Aqueduct Food. He is currently working on a new project – Global Water Watch – which will track global water availability in near real-time. Charles earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University.

Jillian (Jill) Deines is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Food Security and the Environment in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University, working with David Lobell. Jill’s research links agriculture, hydrology, and advanced spatial tools to promote food security, water management, and sustainable land use systems. She specializes in applying statistical and modeling techniques to take satellite data from bits to dynamic maps to process-based understanding, with a goal to inform effective management. Her work is part of the NASA Harvest multidisciplinary consortium to support food security efforts and agricultural decision-making in the US and around the globe. Jill holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Geosciences from Michigan State University, a M.S. in Biology from the University of Notre Dame, and a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Saint Louis University.

Mike Strobel is Director of the National Water and Climate Center of the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, a position he has held since 2007. The National Water and Climate Center began a pilot program in 1991 that later turned into the Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN), a soil moisture and climate information system designed to provide data to support natural resource assessments and conservation activities. Prior to joining the NRCS, he was the Nevada Deputy State Director for the US Geological Survey. Mike received a B.S. and M.S. in Geology from the Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in Geology and Earth Sciences from the University of North Dakota.

Karen Ross (Invited) is Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, a position to which she was initially appointed by Gov. Edmund G. Brown in 2011. Gov. Gavin Newsom reappointed her as Secretary In 2019. Among other initiatives, Secretary Ross has strengthened partnerships across government, academia and the non-profit sector in the drive to maintain and improve environmental stewardship and to develop adaptation strategies for the specific impacts of climate change. Before joining CDFA, Secretary Ross was chief of staff for U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Prior to that appointment, she served as President of the California Association of Winegrape Growers from 1996- 2009, and as Vice-President of the Agricultural Council of California from 1989-1996. Secretary Ross grew up as a 4-H kid on a farm in western Nebraska. She and her husband, Barry, own 800 acres of the family farm where her younger brother, a fourth-generation farmer, grows no-till wheat and feed grains, incorporating cover crops and rotational grazing for beef production. The Secretary has a B.A. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is a graduate of the Nebraska Ag Leadership Program. She has served on numerous boards and committees in California agriculture and with various academic institutions.