Agenda including PDFs of presentations

Regional Climate Summit for Municipal Leaders:
Economic, Health, Water & Transportation Impacts

Thursday, November 14, 2013
University Marriott
Tucson, AZ

Agenda | Speaker Bios

 Speaker Bios

Kevin Burke is serving his sixth year as City Manager for the City of Flagstaff.  As City Manager, he is responsible for the daily operations of the municipal organization. He is directly responsible for 942 employees (full and part time) and accountable for the annual operating and capital budget of $244 million. Kevin was appointed City Manager in January 2008 by the Flagstaff City Council. Prior to his appointment as Flagstaff City Manager, he served as the Deputy City Manager for Boulder, Colorado, Administrative Services Director for Littleton, Colorado, Town Administrator for Wellington, Colorado and the City Administrator for West Tawakoni, Texas. Kevin is a member of ICMA and serves as a Director on the Arizona City/County Management Association (ACMA) Board and is the Chair of Northern Arizona Council of Governments Economic Development Executive Committee. He is also an alumni member of the Flagstaff Leadership Program and serves on the Executive Committee for Flagstaff’s STEM Initiative and the Board of Directors for Boys and Girls Club of Flagstaff. Kevin was recently appointed as the local government representative to the Western Regional Strategy Committee, a sub-committee of the Wildland Fire Executive Council.

Dr. Gregg Garfin is Deputy Director for Science Translation & Outreach in the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona as well as Assistant Professor in Climate, Natural Resources and Policy, School of Natural Resources and the Environment. Gregg works to bridge the science-society interface in order to accelerate the transfer of University of Arizona environmental and climate science findings and techniques to resource managers, planners, policy makers, and other decision-makers in the region. This involves fostering dialogues between scientists and stakeholders, garnering stakeholder input to research agendas and activities, developing sustained interactions between University of Arizona environmental scientists, environmental professionals, decision-makers and the public, disseminating research results and products, and conducting workshops on topics of interest to Southwest decision-makers. His research interests include climate change adaptation, climate variability and change, drought, decision support, and the effective delivery of science to decision makers. Among his many accomplishments, he was Executive Editor of the recently published Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwest United States, a 120-author comprehensive examination of climate, impacts (e.g., to ecosystems, coasts, agriculture, cities), vulnerabilities, and choices for managing change.

Dr. Sharon Harlan is a Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and Senior Sustainability Scientist in the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. She studies patterns, processes and outcomes of class, gender, and ethnic inequalities in contemporary U.S. society. Her recent work is on interdisciplinary problems of social and environmental inequity brought about by rapid urbanization in the Phoenix, AZ, metropolitan region. She is the principal investigator of a project examining urban vulnerability to climate change as a dynamic feature of coupled natural and human systems that differentially place landscapes and people at risk from extreme heat. This three-year study continues her collaborative, interdisciplinary studies on spatial variation in the urban heat island and the implications of climate change for heat-related health inequalities in urban neighborhoods. She also directs the Phoenix Area Social Survey, which examines people's values, attitudes, and behaviors concerning the local environment and the impact of income and ethnic residential segregation on social and physical environmental inequalities. 

Dr. Doug Kenney is a Senior Research Associate in the Natural Resources Law Center (NRLC) in the University of Colorado Law School. Doug is also the director of the NRLC's Western Water Policy Program. He researches and writes extensively on several water-related issues, including law and policy reform, river basin and watershed-level planning, the design of institutional arrangements, water resource economics, and alternative strategies for solving complex resource issues. He has served as a consultant to a variety of local, state, multi-state, and federal agencies, including several Interior Department agencies, EPA, the US Forest Service, and special commissions (e.g., the Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission); and national governments and non-governmental organizations in Asia and Africa. Additionally, he has made presentations in (at least) 19 states (and the District of Columbia), 7 nations, and 4 continents.

Dr. Jon Krosnick is a social psychologist who does research on attitude formation, change, and effects, on the psychology of political behavior, and on survey research methods.  He is the Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor of Communication, Political Science, and (by courtesy) Psychology at Stanford University. In addition to his professorships, he directs the Political Psychology Research Group and the Summer Institute in Political Psychology. Author of four books and more than 140 articles and chapters, Jon conducts research in three primary areas: (1) attitude formation, change, and effects, (2) the psychology of political behavior, and (3) the optimal design of questionnaires used for laboratory experiments and surveys, and survey research methodology more generally. Since the mid-1990s, Jon and the Stanford Political Psychology Research Group have been studying American public opinion about global warming. By conducting a series of national surveys, regional surveys, and experiments, the group has illuminated the prevalence of various opinions in the nation, the dynamics of those opinions over time, the forces shaping those opinions, and the effects of those opinions on action. Among his many accomplishments, Jon’s scholarship has been recognized by election as a fellow by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Nancy LaPlaca, J.D., served as Policy Advisor to AZ Corporation Commissioner Paul Newman from 2009-2013, and has considerable expertise in electric, gas and water utilities including transmission, rate design, energy imbalance markets, renewable energy standards, energy efficiency, net metering, natural gas and coal, water and integrated resource planning.  Nancy spent 3 years as a public interest intervener at the Colorado Public Utilities Commission focusing on externalities, shale gas and coal compliance.  Nancy has a Bachelors and Juris Doctorate from ASU, but please don't hold that against her.

Dr. Diana Liverman is co-director of the University of Arizona Institute of the Environment and Regents Professor of Geography and Development. Her career has focused on the human dimensions of global environmental change and her main research interests include global change, climate impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, climate change and food security, and climate policy, mitigation and justice especially in the developing world. She has been an active member of national and international advisory committees on global change including the US National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change and the Inter American Institute (IAI) for Global Change Research. She was member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on America's Climate Choices which is advised the US government on responses to climate change and chaired the subpanel on Informing Decisions. She was the chair of the scientific advisory committee international Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) program.

Ben Rasmussen is a community planner at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center with expertise in climate change mitigation and adaptation, alternative transportation in parks and public lands, non-motorized transportation planning and evaluation, and regional transportation planning. Benjamin manages the Volpe Center’s portfolios for the Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service and has conducted and managed projects for the National Park Service, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, and local, regional, and state transportation planning agencies. Before joining the Volpe Center, Benjamin worked as a senior program officer for an international environmental non-profit organization and as a transportation planner for the Boston Region MPO. Benjamin holds a Master's degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of the TRB's Metropolitan Policy, Planning, and Processes Committee and is vice chair of the Special Task Force on Climate Change and Energy.

Jonathan Rothschild is the mayor of Tucson. A native Tucsonan, Mayor Rothschild's grandmother moved to Tucson in 1942 and opened a used furniture store on South 12th Avenue. He is a graduate of Canyon del Oro High School, Kenyon College and the University of New Mexico Law School. After serving as a law clerk for District Court Judge Alfredo C. Marquez, he went on to a 30-year career practicing law with the firm of Mesch, Clark and Rothschild. He served as managing partner for the firm and concentrated his practice in the areas of business law and estate planning. He has a long history of service with many nonprofits in the community and served as Board President for Casa de los Niños, Handmaker Services for the Aging and Temple Emanu-el.