Expert Panel

Developing a strategy to address Edmonton's environmental sustainability is a complex undertaking. It calls for expertise in areas of science, technology, economics, planning and human psychology.

In order to meet this challenge, the project will draw on expertise from: subject matter experts who will invited to share their ides through discussion papers and presentations, key stakeholders from across the community who will share their ideas in workshops, citizens who will provide feedback through on-line surveys, and City staff who will bring a wide range of expertise to the table.

As well, an expert panel has been established to provide advice to the project team. Members of the panel include:

Debra Davidson

Associate Professor, Rural Economy and Renewable Resources, University of Alberta
Director, Environmental Research and Studies Centre

Debra Davidson is Associate Professor of Environmental Sociology with a joint appointment in the Departments of Rural Economy and Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta.

Her primary areas of teaching and research include Natural resource politics and governance; social dimensions of global environmental change; environmental risk; and rural sociology.

In recent years she has been focusing on social responses to climate change, particularly community-level vulnerability and adaptation.

Recent articles are published in several journals, including Sociological Inquiry; Canadian Review of Sociology, and Organization and Environment. She is also co-editor of Consuming Sustainability: Critical Social Perspectives on Ecological Change, Fernwood Press, 2005.

Pong Leung

Principal Advisor, The Natural Step Canada

Pong is a founding member of The Natural Step Canada. As a Principal Advisor with The Natural Step Canada, Pong supports communities, businesses and other organizations with integrated sustainability planning and education.

Pong is working with a wide range of clients to share his expertise on sustainability, governance and organizational learning including a strategic positioning and organizational change program with ISL Engineering and Land Services, a comprehensive training and visioning program for the Landmark Group of Builders, and an award-winning broad-based community visioning and planning initiative with the City of Williams Lake.

Before rejoining TNS in 2008, Pong was Program Director of the Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability graduate program at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden. Pong completed his Masters of Science in Environmental Management and Policy at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University in Sweden and his Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Alberta.

Daniel Smith

Ph.D., P.Eng., RSC, CRC, DEE

Dr. Daniel W. Smith was the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Engineering a Fellow of the Academy of Science of The Royal Society of Canada. As a Professor of the Environmental Engineering and Science Program at the University of Alberta, he has guided over 100 masters and 39 doctorate graduate students to the completion of their degrees and published over 480 scientific and technical articles, and another 175 reports, books and book chapters.

Dr. Smith is one of three Principal Investigators of the Forest Watershed and Riparian Disturbance (FORWARD) Project studying the impact of forest management practices on water quality.

Following receipt of his doctorate in Environmental Health Engineering from the University of Kansas and 8 years of service for various agencies including the U.S. Public Health Service, the University of Alaska, Environment Canada and R&M Consultants of Alaska, Dr. Smith joined the University of Alberta in 1978.

Dr. Smith has served in numerous other professional capacities and received several awards including: President of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering in 1987-88, the Rudolph Hering Medal 2002 for the best Journal of Environmental Engineering paper, Elbert F. Rice, Can-Am Awards and the Harold R. Peyton Award for Cold Regions Engineering (2004) from ASCE, and member of the Water Environment Federation Research and Program Committees.

David Schindler

Killam Memorial Chair and Professor of Ecology, University of Alberta

Dr. Schindler holds the Killam Memorial Chair and is Professor of Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta.

His work on lakes has been widely used in formulating policy internationally. He received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

He has served as President of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography and as Canadian National Representative to the International Limnological Society. He is the author of over 300 scientific publications.

Schindler is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society of London, a member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, and a foreign fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He has received ten honorary doctorates from Canadian and US universities, including the University of Winnipeg. He is an Officer in the Order of Canada and a founding member of the International Water Academy.

In 2008 he was appointed to the Alberta Order of Excellence. Trent University has recently named an endowed professorship in aquatic sciences after Schindler.

Guy Swinnerton

Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta

Guy Swinnerton has a PhD in Land Use Studies. His forty years of academic and professional experience with parks and protected areas has focused on the protection of biodiversity and cultural heritage within lived-in and working landscapes. For the past decade, Guy has been a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas International Task Force on Protected Landscapes.

In 2007 he received the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas Gold Leaf Award for his work on protected areas in Canada.