BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Gary G. Allen (Chair) is the Executive Director of the Center for Chesapeake Communities located in Annapolis, Maryland. The Center aims to facilitate local governments’ efforts to plan for growth, development, and protection of local natural resources and the Chesapeake Bay. The Center assists local governments by providing tools, techniques, and technical assistance required to carry out the local governments’ watershed goals and projects. Mr. Allen holds a Master of Public Policy and Administration from American University as well as a B.S. from Indiana State University. With over thirty years of experience, he offers expertise in public policy, outreach, management and advocacy in areas of education and environmental resources for federal, state and local government. Mr Allen’s research interests include urban forest ecology, public policy and urban ecology, as well as the role of green infrastructure in air quality planning.
Marina Alberti is Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington. She is the Director of both the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Urban Design and Planning as well as the Urban Ecology Research Laboratory. Her research interests pertain to the impacts of alternative urban development patterns on ecosystem dynamics. Furthermore, her work addresses measures of urban environmental performance that can be utilized to monitor progress and inform policy-making and scenario planning. Of particular interest to Dr. Alberti is the development and analysis of advanced interdisciplinary approaches to modern ecological problems. She is currently serving as the Principal Investigator for several grant-funded research projects, including a Biocomplexity Grant project sponsored by the National Science Foundation. This project seeks to address the emergent properties of urban landscapes in Seattle, Washington and Phoenix, Arizona.
Molly Brown is a Research Scientist with the Biospheric Sciences Branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Maryland College Park, where she specialized in Remote Sensing, Economics, and Development. Dr. Brown conducts her research in four areas: data fusion to develop long term data records of vegetation dynamics for carbon cycle and terrestrial ecosystem modeling; research to develop science data and analysis for societal applications; modeling of land cover and land use in the context of climate variability; and the development of models and methods that enable the quantification of the impact of climate change on human economic and political systems. In addition to her research, Dr. Brown is an advisor to NASA’s Application Division’s International Sustainable Development initiative.
Marie O’Neill is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. Dr. O’Neill earned her M.S. in Environmental Health Sciences from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina. Her research interests include health effects of air pollution, temperature extremes and climate change, environmental exposure assessment, and socioeconomic influences on health. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Michigan, Dr. O’Neill held positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; the Pan American Health Organization in Mexico at the National Institute of Public Health and the National Center for Environmental Health as a Fulbright Scholar; and
at the Harvard School of Public Health as a Research Fellow in Environmental Epidemiology. In addition to these accomplishments, between 2004 and 2006, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan. Dr. O’Neill is a member of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology and the Society for Epidemiologic Research.
Kenneth Potter is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Potter received his B.S. from Louisiana State University and his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. His fields of interest include the following: hydrological modeling and design; stormwater modeling, management, and design; estimation of hydrologic risk; estimation of hydrological budgets; and restoration of aquatic systems. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, Dr. Potter’s research focuses on providing a technical basis for the sustainable use of aquatic resources and for the restoration of degraded aquatic resources. As the expansion of urban areas poses a major threat to aquatic resources, “low impact development” may permit population growth without excessive environmental concessions. Dr. Potter’s research seeks to design and evaluate various strategies for low-impact land development. Furthermore, his research includes the evaluation of hydrologic conditions under past, present, and varying future conditions, so as to facilitate the restoration of degraded aquatic systems.
S.T. Rao is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Previously he served as the Director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Atmospheric Modeling and Analysis Division, which develops advanced air quality models capable of simulating both the transport and fate of atmospheric pollutants. Dr. Rao’s leadership responsibilities included developing and executing research plans for atmospheric modeling, air pollution meteorology, and analysis and interpretation of complex environmental data corresponding to other federal agencies as well as the national and international scientific community. Dr. Rao has co-authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles in his field. He is a member of the American Meteorological Society and the Air & Waste Management Association.
