Institute Module Leaders
The Institute is being organized into 4 modules (see Curriculum) led by eminent scientists. They are:
Module 1: Conceptual Framework
Dr. Robert Harriss and Dr. Richard Rockwell, Institute Co-Directors
Module 2: Demographic-Human Settlement Processes
Dr. Gayl Ness
Module 3: Sustainability and Cities
Dr. Ernesto Arias
Module 4: Scenarios-Urban Futures and the Global Carbon Cycle
Dr. Jeff Carmichael and Dr. John Robinson
Module 2: Dr. Robert Harriss and Dr. Richard Rockwell
Module 2: Dr. Gayl Ness
Gayl D. Ness received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960. This was followed by a four year postdoctoral fellowship studying economic development in Southeast Asia. He joined the University of Michigan Sociology Department in the fall of 1964 and has been there since then, officially retiring in 1997. He directed the University's Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, continued extensive field work on economic development and population planning in Asia, and taught in the School of Public Health's Department of Population and International Health. In 1989 he initiated a major research and training project in Population Environment Dynamics, with assistance from the MacArthur Foundation and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In 1994-5 he spent two years with the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Switzerland, working on ways to integrate population issues into national strategies for sustainable development. Since 1985 he was worked with the Asian Urban Information Center (AUICK) of Kobe, Japan. His most relevant books include Bureaucracy and Rural Development in Malaysia (1967), The Land is Shrinking: Population Planning in Asia (1984), Population-Environment Dynamics: Ideas and Observations, (1993), Population and Strategies for National Sustainable Development (1997), and Five Cities: Modelling Asian Urban Population Environment Dynamics (2000)
Module 3: Dr. Ernesto Arias
Dr. Arias received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the College of Architecture and Planning of the University of Colorado-Denver (UCD) <www.cudenver.edu//Aandp/home.html>, where he directs the Urban Simulations and Information Systems Laboratory (SIMLab) which serves as an integrating research, teaching and outreach facility. He holds a Courtesy Professor of Computer Science appointment in the College of Engineering at the University of Colorado-Boulder (UCB), where he cofounded and is Associate Director of the Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D) <www.cs.colorado.edu/~l3d/> and is a Faculty Fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Science <http://psych-www.colorado.edu/ics/home.html>.
His research focuses on informed participation and decision support tools (games and simulations), and the development of information technologies to support the construction of shared understanding behind participatory planning and design processes <www.cs.colorado.edu/~l3d/systems/EDC/>. His work has been supported in the U.S. by the National Science Foundation http://webguide.cs.colorado.edu:9080/entwine>, the Council for International Education, and private foundations; and internationally by the European Community, the Organization of Inter-American Universities, the Canadian Agency for Inter-American Development and the Central and South American Fulbright Programs.
His publication record spans various disciplines from design, planning and policy, to computer science and operations research. He is editor of the interdisciplinary methodological reader The Meaning and Use of Housing: International Perspectives on Methods to Policy and Design, Vol. 7, Ethnoscapes Series, Gower, and editor of Sustainable and Equitable Habitats, Vol. 23, Environmental Design Research Association. His University-Community applications include efforts such as the revitalization of the Cole Neighborhood in Denver ("Bottom-up Neighborhood Revitalization: Participatory Decision Support Approaches and Tools," the Urban Studies Journal, Vol. 33, No.10. Special issue on "Housing Markets, Neighborhood Dynamics and Societal Goals").
Internationally he was appointed Faculty Liaison of the Chancellor’s Office at UCD for the establishment of Inter-American Graduate Program on Environmental Management and Ecological Tourism of the College of the Americas <www.rifgae.ucr.ac.cr>; he is a Fellow at UCB’s Center for International Research and Education. He is Ad Honorem Professor for Urban Research in the Engineering Faculty of the University of Costa Rica, where he cofounded the National Program on Urban Sustainable Development (PRODUS) for research and teaching <www.produs.ucr.ac.cr>. He is a past SEL Endowed Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Research at the Technological University of Darmstadt, Germany; a Fulbright Fellow as Teaching Scholar (1984) and Research Scholar (1990) to Latin America on housing policy and sustainability respectively, and is the US Region representative member in the Executive Council of the College of the Americas of the Organization of Inter-American Universities <www.oui-iohe.qc.ca/>. He has recently been appointed to the International Scientific Advisory Board, of Costa Rica’s National Institute of High Technology (CENAT) by the National Council of Rectors and National Government. He has also been recently appointed to the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Advanced Institute on Urbanization, Emissions and the Global Carbon Cycle of the Global Change SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training (START) <www.start.org>; and to the International Scientific Advisory Council of the National Center of High Technology of Costa Rica by t he Council of Rectors of Costa Rica and the National Government.
His professional planning and design experience integrates architecture, urban design and city and regional planning in collaborations with national and international firms in projects such as the planning of Abuja, the new federal capital of Nigeria with firms WMRT of Philadelphia. He is the National Co-Chair of the Urban Design Track of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, and holds an appointment to the National Academic Programs Evaluation Team of the American Planning Accreditation Board, representing the American Collegiate Schools of Planning of the United States.
Contact Information:
Dr. Ernesto Arias
University of Colorado
Campus Box 314
Boulder, CO 80309-04314
Tel: 303 492 6914
Fax: 303 492 6163
Email: ariase@colorado.edu
Module 4: Dr. Jeff Carmichael and Dr. John Robinson
Dr. Jeff Carmichael
Dr. Jeff Carmichael completed a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1997. His research interests include integrated assessment and multi-criteria decision modelling, watershed and water quality modelling on non-point and point sources of pollution, and climate change impacts on water resources. Dr. Carmichael is currently a Research Associate managing QUEST Model Development for the Georgia Basin Future Project. He also continues to work with a cooperative Bulgarian-American research team on a 5 year project developing a multi-objective decision support system for water management in the Yantra River Basin in Bulgaria, led by Dr. Knight at the Center for Integrated Regional Assessment (CIRA) at Penn State University. Dr. Carmichael's professional experience includes work with CIRA, with the Mid-Atlantic (U.S.) Regional Assessment of Climate Change team, a research stay hosted by the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute in Bratislava, and work at the Water Resources Division of International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria. He is also a lecturer in Economics at UBC, where he teaches a course on Natural Resource Economics.
Dr. John Robinson
Professor, Sustainable Development Research Initiative (SDRI), Department of Geography, University of British Columbia Association: Georgia Basin Futures Project, Principal Investigator
John Robinson spent nine years as a student trying to learn about environmental problems and about how to do interdisciplinary research, receiving in the process an undergraduate degree in geography (Toronto, 1975), a Masters in Environmental Studies (York, 1977) and eventually a Ph.D. in geography (Toronto, 1981). He then spent eleven years trying to apply some of this knowledge in the Department of Environment and Resources Studies at the University of Waterloo
In 1992, Dr. Robinson moved to the University of British Columbia, to become Director of the Sustainable Development Research Institute (SDRI) and Professor in the Department of Geography. In 2001, he stepped down as Director and is enjoying his freedom. Dr. Robinson teaches environmental studies courses at UBC but spends most of his time trying to create research projects on a wide range of sustainable development issues. At SDRI he currently directs several research programs in the areas of climate change and policy, analyzing sustainable futures in the Georgia Basin, and the development of modeling and scenario analysis tools. His personal research interests include the human dimensions of global change, regional-scale integrated assessment, involving the public in the analysis of sustainable futures, and the relationship between science and decision-making. Dr. Robinson is a Convening Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a member of the Advisory Council of the David Suzuki Foundation, on the Board of Westcoast Environmental Law, and on the Editorial Board of the journals Integrated Assessment and The International Journal of Global Environmental Issues. He continues to have serious problems with work and personal sustainability but hopes that he will get credit for trying to make his own lifestyle obsolete.
Contact Information:
Dr. Jeff Carmichael
Sustainable Development Research Initiative (SDRI) at the
Institute of Environment, Resources and Sustainability,
University of British Columbia
1924 West Mall Vancouver V6T 1Z2 Canada
1.604.822.0078 (ph) 1.604.822.9191 (fax)
email: jcarmichael@sdri.ubc.ca
website: http://www.sdri.ubc.ca/
Dr. John Robinson
Sustainable Development Research Initiative (SDRI) at the
Institute of Environment, Resources and Sustainability,
and Department of Geography,
University of British Columbia
1924 West Mall Vancouver V6T 1Z2 Canada
1.604.822.9188 (ph) 1.604.822.9191 (fax)
email: johnr@sdri.ubc.ca
website: http://www.sdri.ubc.ca/