Lisa Alvarez-Cohen
Fred and Claire Sauer Professor of Environmental Engineering
Environmental Engineering
Research Areas: Environmental microbiology and ecology, biotransformation and fate of environmental and wastewater contaminants, and innovative molecular and isotopic techniques for studying microbial ecology of communities involved in wastewater treatment and bioremediation communities.
Sample Projects: Oxygenase-Catalyzed Biodegradation of Emerging Water Contaminants: 1,4-Dioxane and N-Nitrosodimethylamine; Quantifying Gene Expression to Predict and Optimize Reductive Dechlorination by Dehalococcoides spp.; Application of Microarrays to Identify Biomarkers of Reductive Dehalogenating-Microbial Communities; Using Molecular and Isotopic Tools to Characterize the Biodegradation of Chlorinated Ethenes and Ethanes; and Characterizing the fate and biotransformation of fluorochemicals in aqueous film forming forms (AFFF).
Ellen Bruno
Assistant Specialist in Cooperative Extension
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Research Areas: Economics of water resources–water markets and adoption of water-saving technologies, agricultural and environmental economics.
Sample Projects: Water Prices, Water Use, and Adoption of Agricultural Technology: Empirical Evidence from California Groundwater with Katrina Jessoe at UC Davis and Economics of Groundwater Quality in Agriculture with Molly Van Dop and Michael Hanemann at UC Berkeley.
Ashok Gadgil
Professor
ENV Program, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Areas: Drinking Water Treatment; Technology Innovation; Technology Maturation for Impact
Sample projects: Arsenic remediation of groundwater used for drinking; Advanced technologies for Capacitive Deionization; Low cost effective remediation of excess fluoride from groundwater used for drinking
Michael Kiparsky
Director of the Wheeler Water Institute
Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law
Research Areas: Water resources policy and management; science-policy interface; translational research and synthesis
Sample Projects: Evaluating and Improving the Relationships Between Regulation and Innovation in the Wastewater Sector; Developing Water Data Systems to Improve Decision Making; Recharge Net Metering to Enhance Groundwater Sustainability; Addressing Institutional Vulnerabilities in California’s Water Allocation Institutions; Evaluating the Benefits for and Pathways to Small Water System Consolidations
Luke Macaulay
Professor
Environmental Planning
Research Areas: fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, river restoration, environmental planning, environmental science, managing flood-prone lands, urban rivers, and sediment in rivers and reservoirs
Sample Projects: The social connectivity of urban rivers, analyzing the city-river relationships over time and current urban river revitalization efforts; The social life of the sediment balance, examining river-basin impacts of dams on downstream rivers and deltas from both geomorphological and environmental history perspectives; and Strategic dam planning for improved tradeoffs between hydropower generation and environment.
William T. Stringfellow
Professor & Director Ecological Engineering Research Program
Earth & Environmental Sciences Area; Energy Geosciences Division; Geochemistry Department; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Research Areas: Industrial waste treatment and water quality, with an emphasis on engineered biological systems. Expertise includes treatment and management of industrial wastewater, including agricultural drainage water. Research experience includes combined physical-biological treatment, treatment wetlands, bioremediation, environmental impact assessment, watershed-scale water quality management, and eutrophication.
Sample Projects: Impact of oil field chemicals on the safe use of produced water for irrigated agriculture; Pre-treatment of non-traditional waters prior to desalinization ;Large-scale groundwater recharge as an alternative to surface storage; Biological degradation of quaternary ammonium compounds and other biocides.
David Zilberman
Professor and Robinson Chair
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Research Areas: Water Economics – water conservation, water market, water quality; Technological Change, Adoption of new technology and innovation; The Bioeconomy – biotechnology and biofuels; Agricultural, environmental and nutritional policy, risk management; and Environmental sustainability – Climate change, environmental risk
Sample Projects: Adoption of Drip Irrigation in California: A historical/econometric study on the evolution of the adoption of drip irrigation in California with Rebecca Taylor, Douglas Parker and Ariel Dinar; The relationship between water dams and conservation: Understanding to what extend dams and conservation are substitutes or complements (will better conservation technologies reduce or increase the need for dams?), with applications to climate change. With Yang Xie; How California is responding to the drought: A new Giannini Foundation project with Yang Xie and Douglas Parker; The Economic Impact of CIMIS (California Irrigation Management Information System): Supported by DWR and NASA with Douglas Parker; and The Regulation of Animal Waste: Assessing the challenge of regulating Nitrogen and Phosphorus simultaneously with Antti Iho and Douglas Parker.