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Rabi Mohtar is Professor and Dean, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences,
American University of Beirut, and TEES Research Professor, Texas A&M
University. He founded A&M’s Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Resource Nexus
Initiative and coordinates AUB’s Water-Energy-Food-Health Nexus Renewable
Resources Initiative: both work toward WEF securities by implementing integrated
solutions through holistic, systems-level thinking (Chaps. 17 and 21).
Okan Pala is an expert in disaster management for critical infrastructures performing research at the Center for Geospatial Analytics and teaching for the
Computer Science Department at NC State University. His research applies geospatial analytics along with cutting-edge computing techniques to solve grand challenges in energy, water, and transportation systems. Dr. Pala received his Ph.D. from
the College of Computing at UNC Charlotte (Chap. 10).
Kami Pothukuchi is an expert in community food systems planning, with a specific interest in planning for social justice and sustainability. She is Distinguished
Service Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State
University and the founding director of SEED Wayne, a campus-community food
system collaborative (Chap. 18).
Outi Ratamäki, D.Soc.Sci. works as a senior lecturer at the Law School University
of Eastern Finland. She is specialized in analyzing natural resources governance
and conflicts at the interfaces between law and policy (Chap. 6).
Robert B. Richardson is an ecological economist and Professor in the Department
of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University. His research interests
are related to the contribution of ecosystem services to socioeconomic well-being.
He uses methods from the behavioral and social sciences to study decision-making
and the values of ecosystem services (Chaps. 19 and 21).
Benjamin L. Ruddell is Professor and Director of Northern Arizona University’s
(NAU) School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS). He is the
lead PI on the FEWSION project, an NSF-funded effort to produce meso-scale
datasets describing national food-energy-water systems (NSF/USDA ACI-1639529).
He served for 8 years on the faculty of the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona
State University before serving at NAU. He holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental
Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Editor; Chaps. 1,
2, 3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, and 21).
Richard Rushforth is an Assistant Research Professor in the School of Informatics,
Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University. His research
focuses on big data modeling of food, energy, and water systems to further the
understanding of complex, coupled natural-human systems. He also works on the
National Water-Economy Project and the NSF-funded FEWSION project (Chap. 10).
About the Authors
Rabi Mohtar is Professor and Dean, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences,
American University of Beirut, and TEES Research Professor, Texas A&M
University. He founded A&M’s Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Resource Nexus
Initiative and coordinates AUB’s Water-Energy-Food-Health Nexus Renewable
Resources Initiative: both work toward WEF securities by implementing integrated
solutions through holistic, systems-level thinking (Chaps. 17 and 21).
Okan Pala is an expert in disaster management for critical infrastructures performing research at the Center for Geospatial Analytics and teaching for the
Computer Science Department at NC State University. His research applies geospatial analytics along with cutting-edge computing techniques to solve grand challenges in energy, water, and transportation systems. Dr. Pala received his Ph.D. from
the College of Computing at UNC Charlotte (Chap. 10).
Kami Pothukuchi is an expert in community food systems planning, with a specific interest in planning for social justice and sustainability. She is Distinguished
Service Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State
University and the founding director of SEED Wayne, a campus-community food
system collaborative (Chap. 18).
Outi Ratamäki, D.Soc.Sci. works as a senior lecturer at the Law School University
of Eastern Finland. She is specialized in analyzing natural resources governance
and conflicts at the interfaces between law and policy (Chap. 6).
Robert B. Richardson is an ecological economist and Professor in the Department
of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University. His research interests
are related to the contribution of ecosystem services to socioeconomic well-being.
He uses methods from the behavioral and social sciences to study decision-making
and the values of ecosystem services (Chaps. 19 and 21).
Benjamin L. Ruddell is Professor and Director of Northern Arizona University’s
(NAU) School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS). He is the
lead PI on the FEWSION project, an NSF-funded effort to produce meso-scale
datasets describing national food-energy-water systems (NSF/USDA ACI-1639529).
He served for 8 years on the faculty of the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona
State University before serving at NAU. He holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental
Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Editor; Chaps. 1,
2, 3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, and 21).
Richard Rushforth is an Assistant Research Professor in the School of Informatics,
Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University. His research
focuses on big data modeling of food, energy, and water systems to further the
understanding of complex, coupled natural-human systems. He also works on the
National Water-Economy Project and the NSF-funded FEWSION project (Chap. 10).
About the Authors