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Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice (2012)

Chapter: Appendix A: Committee Biographies

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
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APPENDIX A

Committee Biographies

John Boland (Chair) is a professor emeritus in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and Program Chair for Environmental Sciences in the Advanced Academic Programs, both at Johns Hopkins University. His fields of research include water and energy resources, environmental economics, and public utility management. Dr. Boland has studied resource problems in more than 20 countries, has published more than 200 papers and reports, and is a coauthor of two books on water demand management and three others on environmental management. He has served on several National Research Council committees and boards, most recently on the Committee on Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration, and is a founding member and past chair of the Water Science and Technology Board. Dr. Boland is a registered professional engineer, and a life member of the American Water Works Association and past chairman of its Economic Research Committee. Dr. Boland received his Ph.D. in environmental economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Tony Bennett is the director of dam safety and emergency preparedness for Ontario Power Generation and serves on a number of committees and panels in Canada that are related to dam safety. His expertise is in dams and reservoir operations. He is the president of the Engineering Institute of Canada, chair of the International Commission on Large Dams Committee on Public Safety Around Dams, and chair of the Canadian Dam Association Working Group on Public Safety Around Dams. He is a member of the Government of Ontario advisory panel that is developing regulations and technical guidelines for dam safety. Mr. Bennett recently completed an 8-year term with the Canadian Dam Association and served as its president during 2006–2008. He graduated with an Honours Bachelor of Applied Science in Civil Engineering degree and is a registered professional engineer in Ontario, Canada.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×

Raymond J. Burby is a professor emeritus in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Burby is a fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He has been an author or editor of 14 books and has published extensively in planning and policy journals, including the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. He is principal investigator in a study of urban growth boundaries funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and in another NSF-funded project designed to improve the quality of applied research on disasters and mitigation of natural and technological hazards. He received his Ph.D. in planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Stephen J. Burges is a professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he spent his professional career. Dr. Burges’s research interests are in surface-water hydrology; urban hydrology; water-supply engineering; the application of stochastic methods in water resources engineering; water resources systems design, analysis, and operation; water resources aspects of civil engineering; and groundwater hydrology. He is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union (AGU). He is a past president (1994–1996) of the hydrology section of AGU. He has presented the Langbein Lecture for AGU, and is the recipient of the Ray K Linsley Award of the American Institute of Hydrology, and the Ven Te Chow Award of ASCE. Dr. Burges was a member of the National Research Council Water Science and Technology Board from 1985 to 1989. He received a B.Sc. in physics and mathematics and a B.E. (Hons 1) in civil engineering from the University of Newcastle, Australia, in 1967. He received an M.S. in 1968 and a Ph.D. in 1970 in civil engineering from Stanford University.

Rita E. Cestti is a senior rural development specialist in the Quality Assurance and Compliance Unit at the World Bank. She has managed the identification, preparation, and supervision of a number of water-related, natural resources, environmental, and disaster management projects in several countries and has led the preparation of several pieces of economic-sector work and implementation of technical assistance activities. She has conducted extensive economic studies in the context of sector work and project analysis and in-depth research in the economics of water resources management and development, demand management, water allocation, water pricing, water pollution control, and integrated planning. She holds a B.S. and a professional degree in civil engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Católica, Peru, and an M.S. in engineering administration and M.A. in economics from the George Washington University. She is a registered professional civil engineer in Peru.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×

Ross B. Corotis (NAE) is the Denver Business Challenge Professor of Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder and has research interests in the application of probabilistic concepts and decision perceptions for civil engineering problems, in particular societal tradeoffs for hazards in the built infrastructure. His current research emphasizes the coordinated roles of engineering and social science with respect to framing and communicating societal investment for long-term risks and resilience. He was on the faculty of Northwestern University for 11 years; established the Department of Civil Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, where he was associate dean of engineering; and was dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science in Boulder. He has received numerous research, teaching, and service awards; chaired several committees on structural safety for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and American Concrete Institute; was editor of the international journal Structural Safety and the ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics; and chaired the Executive Committee of the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability. He has served on the National Academies Building Research Board and the steering committee of the Disasters Roundtable and chaired the Assessment Panel for the NIST Building and Fire Research Laboratory. He is the founding chair of the Committee on NIST Technical Programs and Chair of the Civil Engineering Section of the National Academy of Engineering. He is the author of more than 200 publications. Dr. Corotis received his S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Clive Q. Goodwin is assistant vice president and manager of natural-hazard peril underwriting for FM Global, an insurance company in Johnston Rhode Island that provides global commercial and industrial property insurance, engineering-driven underwriting, and risk management solutions. In this position, he manages worldwide underwriting of wind, flood, and collapse perils. This involves developing and maintaining strategies to capitalize on FM Global’s engineering knowledge of natural hazards to benefit clients with respect to risk improvement and insurance terms and conditions. Before accepting his current appointment in 2007, he served as assistant vice president and manager of natural-hazards engineering. Mr. Goodwin has held several engineering positions in the UK, the Netherlands, and the United States since joining FM Global in 1988 as a field engineer. Recently, he was the leader of FM Global’s efforts to collaborate with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other agencies to highlight concerns regarding the aging inventory of levees while supporting their efforts to change U.S. national policy concerning the levee risk. Mr. Goodwin holds a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering and metallurgy from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Manchester, UK, and a certified diploma in accounting and finance. He is also a chartered engineer and a member of the Institution of ­Mechanical Engineers and has served on the Industry Leaders Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×

Roger E. Kasperson (NAS) is a research professor and distinguished scientist at the George Perkins Marsh Institute of Clark University. He has taught at Clark University, the University of Connecticut, and Michigan State University. His expertise is in risk analysis, global environmental change, and environmental policy. Dr. Kasperson is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Risk Analysis. He has served on numerous National Research Council committees. He chaired the International Geographical Commission on Critical Situations/Regions in Global Environmental Change and has served on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board. He now serves on the National Research Council Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change, is cochair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change, and is on the Executive Steering Committee of the START Programme of the IGBH. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author or coeditor of 22 books and monographs and more than 143 articles or chapters in scholarly journals or books and has served on numerous editorial boards of scholarly journals. From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Kasperson was executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute in Sweden. He was a coordinating lead author of the vulnerability and synthesis chapters of the Conditions and Trends volume of the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment and a member of the core writing team for the synthesis of the overall assessment. Dr. Kasperson has been honored by the Association of American Geographers for his hazards research and in 2006 was the recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Society for Risk Analysis. In 2007, he was appointed associate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the United States. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Shirley Laska is professor emerita of sociology and past director of the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology at the University of New Orleans (UNO-CHART). She has been conducting applied research on the social–environmental interface, natural and technologic hazards, and disaster response for 25 years. Dr. Laska’s work includes studies on residential flood mitigation, hurricane response, coastal land-loss effects, coastal fisheries, community risk assessment and risk management for coastal hazards, use of information technology and GIS as support tools for disaster management, and evacuation of the vulnerable. She has presented her work at National Academies conferences and congressional committees. Since Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Laska’s work has been focused specifically on lessons to be learned from the event, especially in the realm of community recovery and hazard resilience. This work emphasizes participatory action research in both slow-onset events (coastal land loss and sea-level rise) and abrupt major disaster events (Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil leak). She is the 2008 recipient of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Public Understanding of Sociology Award for her continuous collaboration with physical scientists and her presentations nationwide on impacts of Hurricanes Katrina

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×

and Rita, and awards from the ASA Environment and Technology Section and the Rural Sociological Society’s Natural Resources Research and Interest Group. Dr. Laska earned her Ph.D. in sociology from Tulane University.

Lewis E. Link is a senior fellow in the R.H. Smith School of Business and a senior research engineer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Maryland. Dr. Link was a senior executive in various research and development positions in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1986 to 2002, rising to the position of director of research and development. Dr. Link’s principal work is in water resources management and natural-disaster mitigation. He has published numerous papers on water resources–related remote sensing and water policy and on natural-hazard mitigation. Dr. Link served as the director of the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force charged with providing scientific and engineering answers to questions about the performance of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System during Hurricane Katrina, and he was the recipient of the McGraw-Hill Engineering News-Record Award of Excellence in 2006 for leading the forensic analysis of Hurricane Katrina. Dr. Link received his B.S. in geological engineering from North Carolina State University, his M.S. in civil engineering from Mississippi State University, and his Ph.D. in civil engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Martin W. McCann, Jr., is president of Jack R. Benjamin & Associates, Inc., and is a consulting professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, where he is the director of the National Performance of Dams Program. His expertise and professional experience include probabilistic risk analysis for civil infrastructure facilities and probabilistic hazards analysis, including seismic and hydrologic events, reliability assessment, risk-based decision analysis, systems analysis, and seismic engineering. Currently, Dr. McCann is the project technical manager of the Delta Risk Management Strategy project that is conducting a risk analysis for over 1,100 miles of levee in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta. He is also a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force IPET Risk and Reliability Team, which is evaluating the risk associated with the New Orleans levee protection system. Dr. McCann received his B.S. in civil engineering from Villanova University in 1975, his M.S. in civil engineering in 1976 from Stanford University, and his Ph.D. in 1980 from Stanford University.

Hillman Mitchell is the King County (Washington) director of emergency management. Mr. Mitchell oversees a budget of $23 million and supervises employees at the Emergency Communications and Coordination Center in King County and the Emergency 9-1-1 office. The Office of Emergency Management works in partnership with cities, counties, state and federal agencies, and community and other private organizations to develop a

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×

regional approach to disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery related to hazards, including those associated with dam failure (including potential failure of the federally owned Howard Hanson Dam and 86 other dams in the county), flooding, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other events. Before joining King County government, he worked as the City of Tukwila (Washington) emergency management coordinator and was well known to many county employees and regional emergency managers for his outstanding work with Tukwila and in his previous role as government liaison specialist for the American Red Cross. Previously, Mr. Mitchell ran a business as a developer of component software for the digital imaging industry, spent 5 years as a managing consultant at Microsoft, and provided direct technical management to a more than 40-member team of people worldwide as a senior computer scientist for DuPont/Conoco Research. Mr. Mitchell earned his bachelor’s degree in management science and computer systems from Oklahoma State University and has done postgraduate work at the University of Denver, Colorado University, and Colorado State University in finance, communications, project management, and process management.

STAFF BIOGRAPHIES

Sammantha L. Magsino is a Senior Program Officer with the National Research Council’s Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. She was previously a geologist with the Washington State geologic survey where she produced earthquake hazard maps and served as a technical advisor to the state on volcanic hazards. She also served as the science coordinator for a National Science Foundation facility at The University of Texas at Austin conducting aerogeophysical surveys in Antarctica, and has worked for the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses at the Southwest Research Institute conducting geophysical investigations near the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Facility in support of volcanic hazard assessment. Ms. Magsino holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in geology from Florida International University.

Jason R. Ortego wasa research associate with the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. He received a B.A. in English from Louisiana State University in 2004 and M.A. in international affairs from George Washington University in 2008. He began working for the National Academies in 2008 with the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, and in 2009 he joined the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources.

Chanda Ijames is senior program assistant with the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources at the National Academies. She received a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Maryland University College and is pursuing an M.Ed. in Instructional Technology from University of Maryland University College. She began working for the National Academies, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources in 2011.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×
Page 145
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×
Page 146
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×
Page 147
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×
Page 148
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×
Page 149
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13393.
×
Page 150
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Although advances in engineering can reduce the risk of dam and levee failure, some failures will still occur. Such events cause impacts on social and physical infrastructure that extend far beyond the flood zone. Broadening dam and levee safety programs to consider community- and regional-level priorities in decision making can help reduce the risk of, and increase community resilience to, potential dam and levee failures.

Collaboration between dam and levee safety professionals at all levels, persons and property owners at direct risk, members of the wider economy, and the social and environmental networks in a community would allow all stakeholders to understand risks, shared needs, and opportunities, and make more informed decisions related to dam and levee infrastructure and community resilience. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice explains that fundamental shifts in safety culture will be necessary to integrate the concepts of resilience into dam and levee safety programs.

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