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Panel of Experts
Dr. Lewis E. Link
University of Maryland, College Park Senior Fellow ENGR-Civil & Environmental Engineering 1159 Martin Hall University of Maryland, College Park, MD Lewis “Ed” Link is a Senior Fellow in the R.H. Smith School of Business and Senior Research engineer in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland. He received his B.S. in geological engineering from North Carolina State University, his M.S. in civil engineering from Mississippi State University, and his Ph.D. in civil engineering from Pennsylvania State University. Ed has been closely associated with the Army Corps of Engineers most of his career and from 1996 to 2002 he was Director of Research and Development and Chief Scientific Advisor. Most recently he is serving as the Director of the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET), Hurricane Katrina Flood Protection Analysis, Department of Army. You have undoubtedly read the IPET report! Rich Jaso Unisys Rich Jaso is Managing Partner of Emergency Management and Citizen Relationship Management consulting services for Unisys. In this capacity, Rich oversees IT infrastructure support services for emergency activities and creation of citizen relationship/public information systems. He has been involved in the creation of processes and call centers to support agencies within the Federal Government, local Governments, including Albuquerque, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Houston, Charlotte, DeKalb and Rockland Counties, and has implemented CRM systems for private sectors companies such as General Electric, Motorola, BMC Software, IRI, Citibank, and Franklin Covey. Not long after Unisys first responders arrived in New Orleans, Rich was responsible for creating a Public Information System (Call Centers in New Orleans and Sioux Falls, SD) to support the emergency response effort. Displaced natives of New Orleans were hired, housed (in cruise ships and FEMA trailers) and trained to support this effort. Operations began in 9 days and has served as a conduit between emergency operations, City Government departments, and the public ever since. Rich’s background includes 20 years with IBM serving in various sales and marketing executive capacities, partner, KPMG, and was a co-founder of Answerthink Consulting Group in 1997. He has a BS from Cornell University and an MBA from Cornell/RPI. Edward Minyard Unisys Edward Minyard is a Managing Partner in the Global Outsourcing and Infrastructure Services business unit of Unisys. More specifically, Edward is responsible for the leadership of Unisys Emergency Management Practice for North America. In this capacity, he oversees the delivery of Emergency Planning, Preparedness, Response and Recovery Services to key Unisys clients, including the City of New Orleans and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. Ed and his Unisys team came into New Orleans on September 2nd as volunteers, helping to re-establish communications for the local government. Subsequently, they were responsible for the establishment and operations of the Emergency Operations Center and the 311 Public Information Center. They continue to serve New Orleans, and have been instrumental in the planning and preparations activities related to Hurricane Season 2006 and beyond. Ed is a former US Army Ranger and is a decorated combat veteran of the Viet Nam War. He earned an MS in Telecommunications Management and a BS in Business Administration. He has held executive level positions with Deloitte & Touche, Melville Corporation and Arrow Electronics as well as having launched a company which was "taken public" in 1999. Dr. Stephen A. Nelson Professor/Chair Dept. Earth & Env. Sciences Tulane University New Orleans, LA 70118 Stephen A Nelson is a geologist. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley and has studied volcanoes for much of his career. However, since he lives in New Orleans, Dr. Nelson has been completely immersed in the study of the effects of Hurricane Katrina. In particular, he and one of his colleagues rushed out and mapped sediments deposited by floodwaters so as to gain insight into hydraulic conditions during the flood before recovery crews removed them. Dr. Kip V. Hodges Director and Foundation Professor School of Earth and Space Exploration Arizona State University P.O. Box 871404 Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 Kip is a geologist who has broad interests, although most center on the origin and evolution of mountain belts. Kip uses the tools of geochronology and thermochronology to help model the thermal evolution of mountains. Kip is well known at MIT since he received his PhD here in 1981, returned as faculty member in 1983, and stayed until 2006 when he left to be come the Founding Director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Even more relevant to this class is the fact that Kip was the driving force behind the conceptualization and implementation of the Mission 20xx class (12.000) as well as the Terrascope program. He has made a remarkable contribution to the undergraduate educational program at MIT and served for two years on the Task Force. His return makes this the first time that will be able to ask questions following the final presentation! Dr. Christopher Paola University of Minnesota Department of Geology and Geophysics St. Anthony Falls Laboratory University of Minnesota 2 Third Ave. SE Minneapolis, MN 55414 Chris Paola is professor of Geology at the University of Minnesota. He received his PhD from MIT in 1983 and specializes in all aspects of rivers using a mixture of theory, experiments, and observations. Chris does much of his work in a world class facility known as the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory which is part of the department of Civil Engineering where he and his colleagues to understand the processes of sedimentary basin formation and transport and erosion by rivers. Chris and colleagues have designed a major experimental apparatus that allows them to understand the interplay between surface transport systems and basement subsidence that ultimately produces the sedimentary rock record. Chris is using this along with associated theoretical modeling efforts and field studies to learn more about river systems and earth history. Chris has most recently been a major force in the establishment of the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED) with the goal of quantifying the response of earth surface environment to natural and human perturbation. Dr. Carolyn D. Ruppel Research Geophysicist, National Methane Hydrates Program United States Geological Survey 384 Woods Hole Road Woods Hole, MA 02543 Carolyn earned all of her degrees from Course 12 at MIT and can still remember her freshman year! Carolyn was trained as a solid Earth geophysicist who studied continental rifts and mountain belts. After a postdoc in marine geophysics at Woods Hole Oceanographic, Carolyn spent more than a decade as a geophysics professor at Georgia Tech, where she developed large research programs in deep marine methane hydrates and coastal zone hydrology and environmental geophysics. Particular interests include flow and transport processes through coastal wetlands and the impact of land use change on coastal zone groundwater/surface water systems. Carolyn's work uses a combination of theory, modeling, and observations and relies heavily on multidisciplinary collaborations with chemists, ecologists, and biologists.  |
 
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