IE scientists to present at 2017 AGU Fall Meeting
December 3, 2017
Several scientists from the UNC Institute for the Environment will be presenting at the 50th annual AGU Fall Meeting Dec. 11-15 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Fall Meeting is the largest worldwide conference in the geophysical sciences and attracts more than 24,000 attendees from Earth and space science fields. The weeklong program includes presentations on the latest research, poster presentations and networking.
Several members of IE’s Environmental Resource Program are presenting on recent outreach initiatives.
- Grant Parkins, watershed education coordinator, and Sarah Yelton, environmental education coordinator, will present on their work with Tamlin Pavelsky, associate professor of global hydrology, in a poster session titled Citizen and Satellite Measurements Used to Estimate Lake Water Storage Variations.
- Dana Haine, K-12 science education manager, will present a poster titled Engaging Youth on Climate & Health to Cultivate Community Resilience. Kathleen Gray, director of IE’s Environmental Resource program is a co-author. Haine also will be a co-convener for a session titled Climate Literacy: Supporting Communities Addressing Climate Change Through Climate Literacy Cross-Sector Collaboration and Communication Strategies.
- Megan Rodgers, environmental research assistant, will represent IE’s National Science Foundation-funded Increasing Diversity and Enhancing Academia (IDEA) Program. Gray is the principal investigator of the grant.
- Funders for these initiatives include NASA, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Science Foundation.
“Our work is based on current peer-reviewed science, so this is a great professional development opportunity for us,” said Haine. “I enjoy hearing about current science and getting to see our colleagues from UNC and other institutions present their work. It also is an effective way for us to disseminate our work, given the size and breadth of the conference, and a wonderful opportunity to meet others who are doing similar work..”
Greg Characklis, Philip C. Singer Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering and director of the Center on Financial Risk in Environment Systems, is a co-convener and paper author in several sessions including:
- Climate change adaptation in regulated water utilities;
- Managing Financial Risk to Hydropower in Snow Dominated Systems: A Hetch Hetchy Case Study;
- Water and Society: Water Resources Management and Policy in a Changing World I;
- Water and Society: Water Resources Management and Policy in a Changing World II;
- Water and Society: Water Resources Management and Policy in a Changing World III Posters;
- Conflicts in Coalitions: A Stability Analysis of Robust Multi-City Regional Water Supply Portfolios;
- Index-based Insurance Contracts to Foster Cooperation Between Agents Exposed to Uncorrelated Drought and Flooding Risks.