Sustainable Human-Environmental System Decisions Given Climate Change
This event has passed. See the seminar recording here:
Dr. Melissa A. Kenney
University of Minnesota
Monday April 15, 2019, 12:00-1:00 PM
ESSIC Conference Room 4102, 5825 University Research Ct, College Park, MD 20740
Abstract:
Decisions are a combination of scientific facts or predictions and decision-makers’ or society’s values. There are a few cases where the scientifically assessed consequences of different options lead to a clear solution, but more often there are multiple, competing objectives, incompatible stakeholders’ values and objective weights, and uncertainty about quantifying the consequences (positive and negative) of different choices. As a result, it is important to both understand the problems and develop methods that can help to make difficult decisions less complex. In this talk, I will discuss several efforts where I have co-designed integrated models and decision support systems that incorporate multiple disciplinary insights and quantify management relevant consequences. Inspired by current environmental problems, my team’s work has focused on identifying optimal watershed restoration options, setting water quality standards, quantifying the benefits eutrophication reductions, assessing the ecosystem services of stream and environmental restoration, and developing indicator information systems to support a range of diverse climate adaptation decisions. Building on these insights, over the next several years my research program is funded or has proposed research on 1) participatory climate indicators to support coastal resilience; 2) reducing failure time of interdependent infrastructure by focusing on decision-making; 3) improving ecological forecasts for use in environmental management; and 4) evaluating decision support systems, both processes and tools. Through this work, I seek to support evidence-based decision-making by bridging the gap between scientific results and outputs needed for water resources, sustainability, and climate decision-making.
Bio-sketch:
Dr. Melissa A. Kenney is the Associate Director of Knowledge Initiatives at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment (IonE) where she directs efforts to build synergy across IonE’s broad scientific research portfolio. To achieve this goal, she collaborates with faculty, community partners, the University of Minnesota’s systemwide campuses, and the IonE management team to launch new research efforts in support of the strategic plan.
Dr. Kenney is an environmental decision scientist with expertise in multidisciplinary, team-based science approaches to solving sustainability challenges. Her research program broadly addresses how to integrate both scientific knowledge and societal values into policy decision-making under uncertainty. Her research expertise includes conceptual modeling and decision structuring, indicators, systems analysis, multi-attribute methods, and evaluation of decision support to address environmental policy decisions. These decision support tool and collaborative decision-making processes methods have been applied to a range of topics including participatory global change indicators, setting environmental policy criteria, economic analyses for restoration alternatives assessment, expert elicitation, and value of information of indicators. Over the past decade, this work has led to more than 50 publications; more than $5M in grants awarded; more than 100 invited talks, including at the National Academies of Sciences; multiple invited White House events integrating her research findings; and opportunities to translate scientific findings as policy memos or decision support prototypes to federal agencies and the highest levels of government.
In addition to Dr. Kenney’s multidisciplinary scientific research, she has extensive experience in high-level science policy coordination and relationship building between Federal and academic institutions. In her former role as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow, she played a role in visioning a transboundary climate early warning system in the Columbia River basin, facilitated academic center collaborations via a NOAA and NSF partnership, advised several federal agencies on enhancing their social science research agendas, and recommended methods to quantify the value of Federal programs. In recognition of her public engagement leadership, she was part of the inaugural cohort of AAAS Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellows, where she focused on enhancing stakeholder-engaged research to create climate-resilient solutions in the U.S. and Chesapeake Bay region.
Dr. Kenney is also an Associate Research Professor in Environmental Decision Science at the University of Maryland. Previously, she was research faculty in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and a postdoctoral scholar with the National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics at the University of Minnesota and Johns Hopkins University. She earned a Ph.D. from Duke University, focused on integrating water quality and decision models.
Research Team Website: http://indicators.umd.edu.
Webex info:
Event site: http://go.umd.edu/kenney
Event number: 739 238 349
Event password: essic
——————————————————-
To join the online event
——————————————————-
1. Click here to join the online event.
Or copy and paste the following link to a browser:
https://umd.webex.com/umd/onstage/g.php?MTID=e3df7205d2f6b0bd56815415502e8c1e3
2. Click “Join Now”.
——————————————————-
To join the audio conference only
——————————————————-
US Toll: +1-415-655-0002
Global call-in numbers:
https://umd.webex.com/umd/globalcallin.php?serviceType=EC&ED=780921767&tollFree=0
Access code: 739 238 349
——————————————————-
For IT assistance
——————————————————-
Travis Swaim: tswaim1@umd.edu
Cazzy Medley: cazzy@umd.edu
Follow ESSIC:
ESSIC homepage: http://essic.umd.edu/
ESSIC seminar calendar: MSQ-4102; https://go.umd.edu/essicseminar
ESSIC seminar archive/schedule: http://go.umd.edu/essicseminararchive
ESSIC twitter: http://twitter.com/ESSICUMD
ESSIC facebook: http://facebook.com/ESSICUMD
ESSIC seminar coordinator: Dr. John Yang, jxyang@umd.edu
Contact coordinator for email subscription or giving a talk