Keynote Panel – Thursday, April 11th 6:00-7:30 in the NAU DuBois Center Aspen C Room

NAU’s 7th Annual Student Water Symposium theme revolves around The Freshwater Challenge: An initiative to achieve global targets on water, climate, and nature. Learn more about our speakers below.

Ian Harrison obtained his Ph.D. in systematic ichthyology at the University of Bristol, UK. He has conducted research on marine and freshwater fishes from several parts of the world, including fieldwork in Europe, Central and South America, West and Western Central Africa, the Philippines, and the Central Pacific. He was based at the American Museum of Natural History from 1996 to 2008, conducting research on systematic ichthyology and freshwater conservation biology, before starting work with Conservation International (CI) and the Global Species Programme of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He is currently the Freshwater Specialist for CI’s Moore Center for Science. He has served as the Technical Officer for the Freshwater Fish Specialist Group of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission (SSC), is part of the Steering Committee for SSC, and co-chair of the IUCN-SSC Freshwater Conservation Committee. He is Associate Director for the Free-Flowing Rivers Laboratory at Northern Arizona University. He is based in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Salvador Rico has been a member of the Rotary Club of South Ukiah, in Ukiah California since 2007. He has been involved in River projects since 2009, helping Rotary Clubs engage in working on the clean-up, restoration of their rivers, lakes and watersheds, in México, Central America, South America, India, Turkey and other countries. Salvador helps the clubs develop grants via the Rotary Foundation. My current duties in Rotary are: Assistant Governor 2021-2025 D5130 District; District International Service  Chair 2022-2025; Member of the Rotary Foundation Cadres Team 2021-2024. And now with the Rotary-UNEP partnership with the Community Action for Fresh Water program I continue to help Rotarians engage their Rotary clubs in protecting and restoring their rivers, lakes, and watersheds near their communities. Helping Rotary clubs connect with their local and regional stakeholders to develop actions and grants to restore ecosystems in the rivers, lakes and watersheds near their communities.

Mr. David Gressly was appointed as the Executive Director of the Friends of the Verde River in December 2023. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Gressly worked internationally for more than 40 years in the fields of peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and development. Mr. Gressly was the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Yemen. In this role, Mr. Gressly coordinated the delivery of over $2 billion of humanitarian assistance each year providing emergency assistance to over 13 million people in the midst of an eight-year civil war. In 2022, Mr. Gressly was appointed as the United Nations system wide coordinator for eliminating the threat of the FSO Safer – a decaying supertanker carrying over one million barrels of oil that was inaccessible due to the Yemeni civil war. The FSO Safer was a serious environmental threat to the Red Sea and potentially could have spilled four times the amount of oil as did the Exxon Valdez. Mr. Gressly led a regional effort to secure the political and security guarantees required to access and carry out the salvage work on the vessel and led a global effort to mobilize over $140 million to carry out the operation. After nearly two years of work, the salvage operation to transfer the oil was successfully concluded in August 2023. Prior to this appointment, he served in other peacekeeping, humanitarian, and emergency positions in the United Nations.

James (Jim) Allen is a Professor in the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and served as its Executive Director from 2007 to 2021. Prior to his arrival at NAU in 2006, he served for six years as the Dean of the Forestry Division at Paul Smith’s College, in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. He also worked as a research ecologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Louisiana and for the U.S. Forest Service in Hawaii. Dr. Allen has authored more than 70 professional publications on wetland ecology and restoration, agroforestry, and other topics. Earlier in his career, he served for three years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland. He has degrees from Paul Smith’s College (AAS in Pre-Professional Forestry, 1978), Virginia Tech (BS in Forestry and Wildlife, 1980), Cornell University (MS in Natural Resource Policy and Planning, 1986) and Louisiana State University (PhD in Forest Ecology, 1994). Among the courses he teaches at NAU are Watershed Restoration and Wetland Ecology and Management.