2021 SLU Summit for Water: Navigating the Currents of Water Research
03/10/2021
On Monday, March 22, the Water Access, Technology, Environment and Resources (WATER) Institute at Saint Louis University will host its annual research summit, the 2021 SLU Summit for Water: Navigating the Currents of Water Research.
The day-long conference will be hosted on the interactive event platform Airmeet, allowing participants to virtually network with each other and interact directly with presenters.
Details and registration information can be found here.
Free and open to the public, the event will take place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and everyone is invited to join as many presentations as they would like - whether that is just one session in particular or following along with all of the presentations throughout the day.
The summit will kick off at 9 a.m. with a panel discussion around regional water priorities in the Midwest, featuring Nicole Saulsberry, Ph.D., state government representative with the Sierra Club - Illinois Chapter; Michael Rueter, director of the Midwest division, The Nature Conservancy; and Elango Thevar, founder and CEO of NEER: Redefining Water Management through AI.
The panel will be moderated by Amanda Cox, Ph.D., director of the WATER Institute. Cox will lead the guests in a conversation around the most pressing water-related issues they are working to address in their respective areas as well as what progress our region needs to see in the future. Their insight will highlight paths for addressing priority areas in water as we navigate the present and future currents of water research.
At 1 p.m. the Summit will feature a keynote presentation by Emily Berglund, Ph.D., titled "Exploring New Paradigms for Water Resources Management through Agent-based Modeling," with welcoming remarks from Ken Olliff, vice president for research at SLU and the director of the Research Institute.
Berglund, a professor in the North Carolina State University department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, studies sociotechnical systems, with a focus on feedback mechanisms and adaptations among human behaviors and decision-making, infrastructure, and environmental systems as they affect water resources and water infrastructure. Her research focuses on developing agent-based modeling frameworks, optimization methods, and simulation models to explore the interplay within sociotechnical systems and to manage the sustainability, security, and resilience of complex infrastructure systems and smart cities.
Throughout the day, SLU faculty and doctoral students with the WATER Institute will present on exciting areas in their own research areas, spanning the disciplines of biology, earth science, and engineering. Topics will include microplastic contamination in groundwater, taste and odor compounds in drinking water, sand waves in the Bay Area, modeling morphological changes in rivers, effects of climate change on North American water resources, and water quality in critical agricultural zones. Research presentations will include about 20 minutes of presentation and 10 minutes of questions from the audience.
The summit will culminate in a virtual networking happy hour for the opportunity to meet and mingle with the water community - researchers, industry professionals, nonprofit practitioners, regional leaders, faculty, staff, students, and more. Attendees will be able to join virtual tables for break-out conversations to enable more informal conversations and making connections. Those interested can register here.
Questions can be directed to water@slu.edu.
About the WATER Institute
The Water Access, Technology, Environment and Resources (WATER) Institute at Saint Louis University is an interdisciplinary research institute with the mission of advancing water innovation to serve humanity. To learn more, please visit slu.edu/water.