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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. From
1975 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
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68 PATHWAYS TO URBAN SUSTAINABILITY-HOUSTON
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
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BIOGRAPHIES 69
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
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70 PATHWAYS TO URBAN SUSTAINABILITY-HOUSTON
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
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BIOGRAPHIES 71
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,
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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
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BIOGRAPHIES 73
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
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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.
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BIOGRAPHIES 75
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
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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
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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.
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78 PATHWAYS TO URBAN SUSTAINABILITY-HOUSTON
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
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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
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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.
