Gunilla Öberg (IRES Faculty) published in Environmental Science and Policy! Read it here.

Gunilla Öberg (IRES Faculty) published in Environmental Science and Policy! Read it here.

Gunilla Öberg, an IRES professor has been published in the Environmental Science and Policy journal! The paper is called:

On the limitation of evidence-based policy: Regulatory narratives and land application of biosolids/sewage sludge in BC, Canada and Sweden

The paper is free for 50 days via link below.  Anyone can access this before May 9th 2018. 

Read it here:   https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WlAd5Ce0rS5p2

 

Gunilla Öberg

Professor, IRES

Bio

Dr. Gunilla Öberg is inspired by her deep knowledge in chlorine biogeochemistry, environment and sustainability, and her experience as a leader of complex interdisciplinary research and education. Her recent projects address sustainable sanitation planning, particularly in growing urban areas. Questions that drive her work include: What kind of knowledge is needed, used and trusted? How does the knowledge used impact perceived solutions and how are risks and benefits distributed? Research of late involves land-application of biosolids/sewage sludge, contaminants of emerging concern and sustainable sanitation solutions for informal urban settlements. Dr. Öberg also pursues innovations in science education including how to: learn/teach science while recognizing its limits; internalize ideas about bias, uncertainty and ignorance; and distinguish between absence of proof versus proof of absence. Her new pedagogy initiatives include directing UBC’s “First Year Seminar in Science” and developing “Sustainability for the Community and the World”, a 4th year capstone course in UBC’s emerging sustainability concentrations.

Websites: https://ires2015.sites.olt.ubc.ca/gunilla_oberg/
and https://ires2015.sites.olt.ubc.ca/person/gunilla-oberg/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=SKvNP9cAAAAJ&hl=en

Photo Credit: Robbie Sproule from flickr/ Creative Commons 

Maery Kaplan-Hallam, MA – Senior Specialist, Climate Change and Health at First Nations Health Authority

This interview features Maery Kaplan-Hallam, a 2017 RES MA graduate and current Senior Specialist, Climate Change and Health at First Nations Health Authority! At the time of this interview (pre-2020), Maery was working as an Engagement Coordinator with the Government of Alberta’s Land Use Secretariat (LUS).

What is your current position? 

I am part of the consultation arm of the Government of Alberta’s Land-Use Secretariat (LUS), which is responsible for developing all of Alberta’s regional plans as part of an integrated resource management system. Specifically, I work in a small team to support LUS engagement and consultation activities with First Nations and Métis communities across the province. We have the lead role in coordinating meetings on the extensive range of information, ideas, and issues connected to land-use, regional planning, and environmental management in Alberta. The meeting formats range from region-wide Indigenous working groups involving dozens of community representatives to one-on-one policy consultations with individual communities.

What kinds of responsibilities do you have in your current position, and what kinds of challenges do you face?

Part of my responsibilities involve supporting my team in the planning, coordination, and hosting of the engagement and consultation sessions referenced above. This includes back-end office work such as facilitation planning and coordinating various government departments, as well as attending and supporting the sessions themselves.

The other part of my responsibilities ends up taking me outside of the LUS consultation realm altogether. I actually spend most of my time working on a mix of ‘pan-Canadian’ and Alberta-specific files related to Canada’s Pathway to Target 1, an initiative focused on achieving particular conservation targets by 2020 (See here). My work in this realm is predominantly focused on Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs). On the pan-Canadian side of things I am fortunate to support the work of Indigenous leaders and federal/provincial/territorial representatives prompting conversation on IPCAs in Canada. I am also part of a small group of folks trying to do the same within the Alberta Government.

Challenges… Coming into a new political, cultural, and socio-economic context has been too stimulating and enriching to label a challenge per se, but it is a steep learning curve. As is the shift from academic and ENGO worlds to government, since the latter involves such specific (and at times somewhat baffling) language, hierarchy, norms, and process.

What do you like most about your current job?  

The first thing is that I have the opportunity to sit at working group tables with technical consultants, political leadership, and elders from First Nations, Métis Settlements, and the Métis Nation of Alberta, listening to them directly about land-use and environmental management in the province. It’s difficult for me to articulate succinctly how immense a learning experience this has been.

It has also been fascinating to get exposure to the inner workings of a government bureaucracy. Having previously worked in the academic, ENGO, and private sectors, coming into government has been an incredible opportunity to see the processes behind certain decisions and actions -or inaction- that often leave onlookers puzzled or exasperated. Now at least I feel slightly less puzzled…

In what ways did your experience in IRES help prepare you for what you do now?  

It set the stage for a quite a bit of the work I do now. For one, my field research involved spending a lot of time talking with local community members about the impacts of environmental management on different dimensions of their lives and livelihoods. There is strong overlap between those conversations and the ones I am a part of in Alberta through Indigenous engagement and consultation sessions.

The process of writing a thesis and subsequent journal articles certainly improved my written communication. The ability to present concise and coherent messages about an issue is beneficial across all sectors.

As well, though my work always focused on the human dimensions of environmental issues, the interdisciplinary nature of IRES meant that I was often exposed to the biophysical side of the conversation. I continue to build on that exposure today as I work in spaces where different sectors, such as forestry, agriculture, energy, tourism, and parks, need to communicate with each other.

Why did you choose the RES program (and UBC)?  What was your previous educational background, and how did this influence your choice? 

My academic background includes a BA in geography from the University of Victoria, which had a heavy focus on human geography and the socio-cultural dimensions of natural resources management. That degree prompted an interest in qualitative research on linked human-environmental issues, and I thought IRES would be one of the best places to build on those interests within a well-respected, research-focused, interdisciplinary program with some heavy-hitting social-scientists on its faculty.

What was the most enjoyable and/or impactful part of your experience in IRES? 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most impactful parts of my IRES experience were not the most enjoyable at the time. In particular, I’m thinking about the painstakingly iterative process of refining and re-refining research ideas, plans, and products in the face of time and resource constraints. Struggling through that cycle of guidance- attempt- feedback- refine has had a hugely positive impact on my skill set as a researcher and strengthened my overall capacity as a thinker.

Do you have any advice for current RES students?

The relationship with your supervisor will impact your experience more than you realize now. All of the faculty at IRES offer incredible intellect, curiosity, and research capacity, but they are not all a good match for you. Through a combination of luck (on my part) and thoughtfulness (on their part) I was exceedingly fortunate to work with two supervisors that I could communicate with in terms of logistics, timelines, and funding as well as the heady mess of early-stage social science research. Significantly, I could count on them for what I needed, and as far as I’m aware they felt the same about me.

So, just a few pieces of advice:

  • Pick your supervisor carefully and start communicating about the important things from step one. Don’t wait too long for them to initiate any key conversation; they are busy and also human. You both hold responsibility for your success.
  • Be more organized than you would otherwise think is necessary and assume that anything involving revisions and feedback will take a million years.
  • Take advantage of the masses of examples that you have access to, for everything from research and funding proposals to conference presentations and thesis structures. You will likely produce a much better product more efficiently than starting from a blank slate.

There are a hundred other ‘lessons learned’ of course, and they will vary depending on who you ask. I certainly recommend reaching out to chat with different folks who have completed or are part way through the program to gather their insights and pointers.

I found my time at IRES immensely stimulating, challenging, enjoyable, and beneficial. I wish you the same.

For more info on Maery’s work and a few publications that are demonstrative of the kind of qualitative social science Maery was involved in over the course of her time at IRES, check out the below links:

Kaplan-Hallam, M., Bennett, N.J., & Satterfield, T. (2017). Catching sea cucumber fever in coastal communities: Conceptualizing the impacts of shocks versus trends on social-ecological systems. Global Environmental Change 45, 89-98. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378017301036

Kaplan-Hallam, M. and Bennett, N. J. (2017), Adaptive social impact management for conservation and environmental management. Conservation Biology. doi:10.1111/cobi.12985 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cobi.12985

Bennett, N.J., M. Kaplan-Hallam, G. Augustine, N. Ban, D. Belhabib, I. Brueckner-Irwing, A. Charles, J. Couture, S. Eger, L. Fanning, P. Foley, A. M. Goodfellow, L. Greba, E. Gregr, D. Hall, S. Harper, B. Maloney, J. McIsaac, & M. Bailey. 2018. Coastal and Indigenous community access to marine resources and the ocean: A policy imperative for Canada. Marine Policy 87:186–193. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X17306413

Zia Mehrabi (IRES Postdoc) has correspondence published in Nature!

Zia Mehrabi, an IRES Postdoc has a correspondence published in Nature!

To view the correspondence click here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02566-1

 

Zia Mehrabi

Bio

Zia Mehrabi is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at IRES, with adjunct positions in The Liu institute for Global Studies & The Centre for Sustainable Food Systems. He obtained an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford in 2011, and a DPhil in Food Security, also from Oxford, in 2016. He has worked in industry on large scale farmland expansion in sub-Saharan Africa, in a non-profit setting on developing environmentally conscious decision support tools for land managers, and with small scale farmers on the interactive effects of agricultural intensification and climate change on crop yields.

His work at UBC is focused on 3 core research areas:

(1) Technological tools for farmer evidence based decision making
(2) The impact of climate disasters on global agricultural productivity
(3) Novel solutions for monitoring the environmental and social impacts of farming activities

Congratulations to Dean of Science Excellence in Service Award recipient Gillian Harris (IRES Manager)!

Congratulations to Gillian Harris for winning the Dean of Science, Excellence in Service Award! Gillian is a truly integral and irreplaceable member of the IRES community, and so deserving of this recognition.

The award is for recognizing staff, students and faculty whose service contributions have had a significant positive impact in achieving UBC Science’s mission. Find out more here:

https://science.ubc.ca/faculty/awards/service

 

Two new IRES Faculty Associates: Nadja Kunz and Sumeet Gulati!

IRES would like to welcome Nadja Kunz and Sumeet Gulati as new IRES Faculty Associate members!

 

Nadja Kunz

Assistant Professor, Liu Institute for Global Issues and Norman B. Keevil Mining Engineering

https://liu.arts.ubc.ca/profile/nadja-kunz/

Nadja Kunz is an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Norman B Keevil Mining Engineering at the University of British Columbia Vancouver campus. She obtained her PhD from the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) at The University of Queensland, Australia where she remains an Adjunct Fellow. She also spent two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Eawag Aquatic Research Institute in Switzerland. Nadja has a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (First Class Honours) and a Bachelor of Business Management (Dean’s Honour Roll), both from the University of Queensland.

Nadja is driven by a passion for transitioning the private sector towards more sustainable water management practices. Her current research focuses on the mining and extractives sector at two geographical scales of analysis: (1) within the mine lease, and (2) within mining regions. At the mine site level, Nadja develops novel engineering models to improve quantification of water risk, and investigates organizational constraints to implementing optimal system-level solutions. At the regional level, Nadja studies the evolving role of the mining sector in water stewardship and governance. She is especially interested in how mining can best contribute towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG6 which focuses on the provision of water and sanitation.

In addition to her academic credentials, Nadja maintains close links to practice. She currently consults as a Water Specialist for the International Finance Corporation where she has provided technical expertise to a Voluntary Code of Practice on Water Management for the South Gobi Region in Mongolia, as well as other projects globally. Nadja is also a member of the academic directorate for the Canadian International Resources and Development Institute (CIRDI). Previously, Nadja gained extensive operational experience in the mining, oil and gas sector within Australia, including at the Northparkes copper/gold mine, Yarwun Alumina Refinery and BP’s Bulwer Island refinery. She has also worked in corporate sustainability reporting for Rio Tinto and consulted for Anglo Gold Ashanti in South Africa.

 

 

Sumeet Gulati

Associate Professor, Faculty of Land and Food Systems.

Home Page

I am an Associate Professor in Environmental and Resource Economics at the University of British Columbia, studying the economics of urban transportation. Alongwith my co-authors I ask: at their modest values, do carbon taxes reduce gasoline consumption? Do they encourage people to buy fuel efficient vehicles? Do older consumers, especially women, perform better or worse while negotiating a price for a new car? What are the economics of car sharing—like Car2Go, and Evo? And what explains the autonomous emergence of electric rickshaws in India?

Years ago, before I discovered the world of urban mobility, I also studied the impact of international trade on the environment, and the cost-effectiveness of programs designed to improve energy–efficiency (for example, rebates to energy efficient appliances and hybrid vehicles).

Outstanding Student Paper Award Winner at the AGU-Michael Lathuillière (IRES PhD Candidate)

The winners of the Outstanding Student Paper Awards for the AGU (Advancing Earth and Space Science) Fall Meeting 2017 have been announced, and Michael Lathuillière

(IRES PhD Candidate) was one of the recipients! His presentation was on the:

Evapotranspiration measurements in rainfed and irrigated cropland illustrate trade-offs in land and water management in Southern Amazonia’s agricultural frontier

Congratulation Michael!

Click on link for more information:

https://membership.agu.org/ospawinner/michael-lathuilliere/

Michael Lathuillière

Bio: I am a Ph.D candidate in Dr. Mark Johsnon’s Ecohydro Lab working on the development and application of Water Footprint methods for agricultural products.

My research focuses on Water Footprint assessments within the context of agricultural expansion in Southern Amazonia. This work involves: (1) high frequency field measurements of crop water use using eddy covariance, (2) parameterization and validation of crop models for the region’s tropical conditions, and (3) translation of agricultural water use into environmental impacts on the water cycle.

My work contributes to the project “Integrating land use planning and water governance in Amazonia: towards improving freshwater security in the agricultural frontier of Mato Grosso” supported by the Belmont Forum in collaboration with the Tropical Agriculture Department of the Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso (UFMT, Cuiabá, Brazil), UBC’ s Faculty of Land and Food Systems, Woods Hole Research Centre, and the Université du Québec à Montréal’ s Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility.

I hold an M.Sc. (Resource Management and Environmental Studies, 2011) and a B.Sc. (Chemistry, 2002) from the University of British Columbia. I am also actively involved in the Water Footprint community through the Water Footprint Research Alliance, ongoing participation in the Water Use in Life Cycle Assessment (WULCA) Ecosystems and Resources Working Groups, and FAO’s Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership.

Visit my website

Publications in Google Scholar

http://blogs.ubc.ca/mjlath/

 

 

Emma Luker, MSc – Sustainability and Engagement Planner, UBC Campus + Community Planning

This interview features Emma Luker, a 2017 RMES MSc graduate and current Sustainability and Engagement Planner! At the time of this interview (pre-2020), Emma was working as a Planning Analyst in UBC’s Campus + Community Planning Department, with a dual role in the Public Engagement and Sustainability + Engineering units.

What is your current position?

I am currently a Planning Analyst in UBC’s Campus + Community Planning Department, with a dual role in the Public Engagement and Sustainability + Engineering units.

What kinds of responsibilities do you have in your current position, and what kinds of challenges do you face?

My role with C+CP is unique because I have a variety of different responsibilities that I look at from two very different lenses. With Public Engagement I am responsible for planning and developing content for the range of public consultations surrounding UBC’s many, many projects, which I view from a community engagement lens. My other main responsibility is to assist in the ideation and development of emerging policy and plans for the University, such as the Urban Forest Management Plan, through my role with Sustainability + Engineering. I view these responsibilities through a more natural resource management lens, applied at the UBC planning level. The main challenge I face is to juggle these different perspectives when keeping UBC stakeholders informed and ensuring their voices are heard, while also helping to incite sustainable change within the university.

What do you like most about your current job?

I honestly love the pace and the diversity of people I get to work with. I am still relatively new to my position, and so I am still learning who to go to with what question, but being able to find out about the amazing work that goes on behind the scenes at UBC is pretty fantastic.

In what ways did your experience in IRES help prepare you for what you do now?

I think the best way that IRES prepared me for my job was through encouraging me to think critically and to be solution-oriented when looking at problems. So often it can be easy to point out flaws in a plan, which is essential, but to not couple that process with developing a solution is very frustrating. My time with IRES showed me the value of a good argument can be in the solutions it presents, instead of the obstacles.

Why did you choose the RMES program (and UBC)?  What was your previous educational background, and how did this influence your choice?

I completed my B.A&Sc at McGill University in Environment and International Development, and was super jazzed about doing a graduate degree that involved international fieldwork that would have an impact on long-term strategies for adapting to climate change effects. At the time I had no idea how broad and idealistic this plan was: What strategies? For whom? What kind of effects? The list of questions goes on and on. I chose IRES because my two potential co-supervisors gave me a structure to work with and provided me with the tools and questions to settle my vision and narrow my scope, which at the time was an incredibly hard thing for me to figure out, but was what I knew I needed.

What was the most enjoyable and/or impactful part of your experience in IRES?

The colleagues that I had the pleasure of working with at IRES made all of the difference. The sense of community and support that came out of my two lab groups made my degree and thesis so much easier to navigate, and I always felt like I had peers who would answer my questions and provide me with very thoughtful feedback. The program management staff at IRES is also stellar, and eased all of the headaches that go along with funding applications, applying for graduation and generally trying to figure out a giant institution while you are just one confused person.

Do you have any advice for current RMES/RES students?

For current students looking for work: the program that helped me the most when looking for work after my degree was the UBC Sustainability and Greenest Scholar program. I was accepted as a Scholar in the summer of 2017 when I was writing and defending my thesis and it was an amazing opportunity to make local connections, do cool research, and get exposed to what it is like working in the public sect if that is something that you are interested in. For current students trying to make the most of your degree: I would recommend reaching out to upper year PhD students and asking for advice on whatever it it is that you are struggling with because they have definitely experienced the same thing at some point. Also join the Student Society! Its a great time and you get the chance to collaborate with new and lovely people who work really hard to make the student experience better for everyone.

Any links to current work you would like to share?

Get involved in the upcoming U Boulevard consultation process! Find out more here: planning.ubc.ca/uboulevard

For more info on Emma’s work and what she’s up to, check out her LinkedIn profile and her master’s thesis.

IRES Faculty Leila Harris and previous IRES Postdoc Crystal Tremblay published a new article

February 21 2018

Faculty member Leila Harris and previous IRES Postdoc Crystal Tremblay published a new article.

Click on the link to read the full article: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1WaOP3pILM2z4

This URL has a 50 day free access to the article. Until April 8 2018 this link will be taken directly to the final version of the article on ScienceDirect.

 

Tremblay, C. and L. Harris (2018). “Critical video engagements: Empathy, subjectivity and changing narratives of water resources through participatory video.” Geoforum 90: 174–182.

 

As co-author of the article Critical video engagements: empathy, subjectivity and changing narratives of water resources through participatory video, we are pleased to let you know that the final version – containing full bibliographic details – is now available online.

To help you and the other authors access and share this work, we have created a Share Link – a personalized URL providing 50 days’ free access to the article. Anyone clicking on this link before April 08, 2018 will be taken directly to the final version of your article on ScienceDirect. No sign up, registration or fees are required – they can simply click and read.
Your personalized Share Link:
https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1WaOP3pILM2z4

 

This article engages a critical feminist analysis of a community-based participatory video (PV) process focused on water and sanitation issues in underserved settlements of Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa. With focus on emotions and empathy, we highlight these concepts in relation to participant narratives and shifting subjectivities. In so doing, we consider how arts based engagement (in this case, through participatory video), might serve to foster new ways of relating to water resources and water infrastructures. The analysis highlights how the participants themselves reflect on PV as a vehicle for personal transformation, knowledge co-creation and a shifting sense of their own ‘watered’ subjectivity. We find that the PV process helps to uncover and identify knowledge and process gaps on by enabling individuals and communities—often unheard—to participate in civic and political debates around resource governance. While many positive elements were emphasized, we also suggest that there is a need for critical engagements that also address challenges associated with these methods, including limitations with respect to fostering fundamental long-term change in communities. In the conclusion, we broaden beyond our individual case studies to consider implications for community engagement and citizenship practices in the realm of natural resource governance.

 

Leila Harris

Associate Professor, IRES

Associate Professor, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice

Bio

Leila Harris is an Associate Professor at IRES Institute on Resources Environment and Sustainability and in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. She also serves as Co-Director for UBC’s Program on Water Governance (www.watergovernance.ca), is a member of the EDGES research collaborative (Environment and Development: Gender, Equity, and Sustainability Perspectives, www.edges.ubc.ca), and is an Associate of the Department of Geography, and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC. Dr. Harris’s work examines social, cultural, political-economic, institutional and equity dimensions of environmental and resource issues. Her current research focuses on the intersection of environmental issues and inequality / social difference, water governance shifts (e.g. marketization, participatory governance), in addition to a range of water governance challenges important for the Canadian context (e.g. First Nations water governance). Current projects include a SSHRC funded project on everyday access and governance of water in underserved areas of Cape Town, South Africa and Accra, Ghana. Dr. Harris is also principal investigator for the SSHRC funded International WaTERS Research and Training Network focused on water governance, equity and resilience in the global South (www.international-waters.org).

For more on Leila: https://ires.ubc.ca/person/leila-harris/ 

Krista English (RES PhD Candidate) co-author of a chapter in the new Handbook of Research Methods in Complexity Science

Krista English (RES PhD Candidate) is a co-author of a chapter in the new minted Handbook of Research Methods in Complexity Science!

Click the link below to view the book.

“This comprehensive Handbook is aimed at both academic researchers and practitioners in the field of complexity science. The book’s 26 chapters, specially written by leading experts, provide in-depth coverage of research methods based on the sciences of complexity. The research methods presented are illustratively applied to practical cases and are readily accessible to researchers and decision makers alike.”

 

Krista English, MBA

PhD Candidate

I am a PhD Candidate with an interest in topics at the intersection of complex systems, health systems, knowledge translation (KT) and evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM), and their general relationship with organizational complexity and public health policy design.

 

My research generally falls under the interdisciplinary umbrella of complexity sciences. This has included examining transmission dynamics on social networks. Infectious diseases and knowledge translation alike are contagious phenomena, whose transmission pathways can be mapped using networks. Understanding the properties that facilitate or inhibit their spread have proven instrumental for EIDM in the areas of infectious diseases, global health, and health policy and systems research. This novel application enhances our understanding of the new metrics available which may facilitate knowledge flow for EIDM, improving organizational capacity in support of quality improvement, client care and systems transformation. Drs Babak Pourbohloul and Hadi Dowlatabadi co-supervise my work.

 

I have an MBA which focused on health care management and organizational behaviour, and more than a decade of experience in population and public health research and management. In addition, I served a 4-year-term as a Co-Director of a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. I am currently a Senior Scientific Researcher and a Co-Investigator on a Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) multi-year operating grant.

 

Sameer Shah and Scott McKenzie (RES PhD Candidates) published an article in Macleans

An article by two of our RES PhD candidates has been republished in Maclean’s:

What Colin Kaepernick can teach us about citizenship

Opinion: Kaepernick’s protest, about what and who makes a team and a nation, can also be connected to environmental justice

You can read the article here:

http://www.macleans.ca/society/what-colin-kaepernick-can-teach-us-about-citizenship/?t=1&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjc18y&refsrc=email&iid=9e7e6933bc9044b28ee6768c4bc9aba2&uid=331810806&nid=244+272699400

 

 

 

Sameer Shah

Sameer Shah is a PhD candidate in Resource Management & Environmental Studies under the supervision of Professor Leila Harris. He examines the social, political, and natural dimensions of water governance and its impacts on marginalized agricultural communities in India. He is deeply interested in promoting efforts designed to strengthen community adaptation and rural livelihoods in response to shifts in water access. Through his work, he is involved with the Program on Water Governance and with the EDGES Research Group. In 2012, he graduated with a Bachelor of Environmental Studies (Honours Co-operative) from the University of Waterloo and earlier this year he completed his Master of Science degree at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability.

Sameer is also actively involved in water policy planning at UBC, in British Columbia, and across Canada. At UBC, he is currently a lead organizer of Water Ways: Understanding the Past, Navigating the Future, a major interdisciplinary workshop celebrating UBC’s 100th anniversary and bringing together leading water experts to advance a global water research agenda for the coming century. He also holds an 18-month appointment as the Pacific Regional Representative for the Canadian Water Network’s Student and Young Professional Committee of emerging water leaders. In 2014, he was selected as one of about 50 applicants from across Canada to participate in the Waterlution Transformative Leaders of the Future Program. As part of this program, he co-facilitated the first Canada-wide exercise in participatory water policy planning with the aim to inject the public’s creative visions into future water policy. Having travelled to over 20 countries and lived in multiple, Sameer is passionate about nature, cooking, photography, and hiking.

 

 

 

Scott McKenzie

Scott is a PhD candidate in Resource Management and Environmental Studies working under the supervision of Dr. Leila Harris. Before UBC, Scott completed a Bachelors of Arts in Environmental Studies, Philosophy, and American Studies at the University of Kansas and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Iowa. Scott’s research and writing focuses how contending notions of scale and regulation affect water policy (within the water-energy-food nexus). His work considers the relationship between the natural environment, human development, and law. He has also worked as a development agent for the United States Peace Corps in Morocco, in the Cairo office of the Near East Foundation, as a private practice lawyer in New Orleans, and at the International Water Resources Association in Montpellier France.

At UBC Scott is a member of the EDGES research collaborative and the Program on Water Governance. Scott’s research will be involved with Experience of Shifting Water Governance: Comparative Study of Water Access, Narrative and Citizenship in Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa. This collaborative comparative research project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and will focus on differing relationship between citizens in under served areas in Ghana and South Africa, their provision of water, and how they access and interact with the state to mediate this relationship.

 

 

Photo Credit: Keith Allison from flickr/ Creative Commons