The vision that drives my research is a world where the needs of present and future generations are being met in a way that humans thrive while conserving the planet’s life support systems. In the past, resources that support life such as energy, food, and water have been exploited, managed, and regulated independently, and without significant acknowledgement of the scale of impacts on natural systems. Over time we have realized that the conventional approach to manage resources is unsustainable in a world with rapid population growth and urbanization, aging engineered systems, threats of climate change, and lack of sustainable financial resources.

My research group seeks to address daunting questions at interface of water, energy, climate, and food systems with a collection of physical, statistical, and geospatial modeling tools that characterize the interactions between human and natural systems, assist long-term strategic resource planning, and resolve critical conflicts at the heart of the nexus.