Speakers

 

 

 

 

Yaakov Garb, Senior Lecturer, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Bona Terra Department of Man in the Desert

 

 

 

Dr. Garb is a Lecturer at Ben Gurion University and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Studies at the Watson Institute, Brown University. He draws on a training in environmental studies and in science and technology studies (STS) in research, teaching, and consulting on environmental and urban issues. Dr. Garb specializes in projects demanding interdisciplinary perspectives, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and a merging of analysis with advocacy for change.

 

 

Yochanan Kushnir, Columbia University Lamont Research Professor,
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Ocean and Climate Physics

 

 

 

 

Dr. Kushnir is research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, The Earth Institute, and Columbia University. His research is concerned with characterizing and understanding climate variability and change using observations and global climate models. He is particularly interested in the role of the oceans in climate variability on time scales of years to decades. Throughout his career at Lamont he has mentored graduate and undergraduate students in their research. With his collaborators and students, He published extensively on the topics modern and paleo climate variability. He co-edited and contributed to the 2003 American Geophysical Union Monograph: The North Atlantic Oscillation: significance and environmental impact and was one of the authors of the 1995 National Academies report on Climate Variability on Decade-to-Century Time Scales. Between 2003 and 2014 he served as the director of the Cooperative Institute for Climate Applications and Research (CICAR), a research partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Columbia University. He currently co-chairs the CLIVAR working group on Decadal Climate Variability and Predictability and the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) scientific team responsible for the Grand Challenge on Near Term Climate Prediction. In 2013 He was elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2013.

 

 

Giora Shaham, Director General and Chairman of the Board,
The Governmental Authority for Water and Sewage, Israel

 

 

 

 

Mr. Giora Shaham is a Director General and Chairman of the Board of The Governmental Authority for Water and Sewage of Israel. He was nominated by the government to fill this position in June 2017. Mr. Shaham is responsible for the management of Israel’s water resources, formulation of the water policy, regulation, planning and development of the water economy. Prior to this position Mr. Shaham held an Environment & Water Resources Engineering Consulting Company providing Professional planning and management services in a wide variety of projects in the water sector in Israel and overseas. One of the flagship projects Mr. Shaham managed is the Hula Valley Rehabilitation and Re-flooding Project. Mr. Shaham was honored to be one of the 12 Israel Independence Day Torch Lighters in 2012, dedicated to the celebration of the water sector. Mr. Shaham holds a Master of Science Degree in Civil and Agricultural Engineering from Technion, Haifa.

 

 

 

Jim Yoon, Water Security and Resilience Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

 

 

 

Dr. Jim Yoon is a water security and resilience scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. His research focuses on the development and application of advanced modeling and simulation techniques to understand, quantify, and evaluate impacts to water systems, targeting solutions that can enhance critical infrastructure resilience under changing and adverse conditions. Jim obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University, where his research focused on the development of a multi-agent hydrologic-economic model for evaluation of water security in Jordan and the Middle East. Jim spearheaded the Jordan Water Project (JWP), an international interdisciplinary research project supported by a consortium of national science agencies with further assistance from USAID. Prior to his work at Stanford, Jim spent several years working as a water resources engineer at MWH Global in Southern California, consulting for municipal clients across the western US. He is also co-founder of WellDone International, a San Francisco based non-profit organization working to support clean water and sanitation projects in underserved regions across the developing world. Jim holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering with an English Literature minor from UCLA.