Sponsors & Facilitators

José supports EDF’s work promoting agricultural and rural community water resilience across California. He focuses particularly on supporting the implementation of sustainable groundwater management and multibenefit land repurposing. His current work is focused on providing research, data analysis, and coordination to support EDF’s multibenefit land repurposing initiatives.

Anna Schiller began working with EDF in 2017 on sustainable groundwater management and multibenefit land initiatives. She was deeply involved in developing and building support for California’s Multiple Benefit Land Repurposing Program (est. 2021) and currently co-chairs the program’s Statewide Support Entity. In this role, Anna works with local governments, growers, and community-based organization to support regional land and water use planning and multibenefit project implementation. Anna holds a master’s degree from the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara and a Bachelor of Science degree from UC Davis.

Shobha Khanna is a second year Masters student at UC Merced working under Dr. Joshua Viers. She is researching the usage of spatial optimization in land fallowing and land repurposing in the San Joaquin Valley. She earned her Bachelors in computer science and environmental science from UC Davis.

Dr. Jaishri Srinivasan researches sustainability with a regional scale focus. She has undertaken research on water security in the Colorado River basin, water affordability and justice in the US Northeast, and fire governance in the Intermountain West. She currently works with Secure Water Future to assess water governance and security in California and the West. Her research is policy-relevant and offers strategies for resilience and sustainability.

Jack Severson has a strong, personal commitment to water-related issues, and is joining VISTA to help coordinate and support Secure Water Future. His educational background includes a Bachelor's degree from Western Washington University in Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Environmental Studies. His experiences and role as a professional skier and river guide has given him practical experience and insight into hydrology, local, and regional water-related systems and issues. This combination of academic knowledge and professional experience in both alpine and river environments has significantly contributed to his understanding of water management and conservation efforts. His hands-on experience with water issues in the west will enable him to explore water management and conservation efforts passionately and effectively. Jack's commitment to these issues will help Secure Water Future accelerate its research, education, and extension mission in the coming year.

Professor Viers is a watershed scientist with expertise in resource management and environmental decision making. Joshua Viers became the Director of Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at UC Merced after joining the CITRIS leadership team in August 2013. Dr. Viers is also an Associate Professor in Water Resources Engineering at UC Merced.

Dr. Viers previously served in a research capacity at UC Davis for 10 years after receiving his Ph.D. in Ecology there, most recently as Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy. He received his B.S. in International Agricultural Development from UC Davis, where he received an Outstanding Performance Citation. He has also served in leadership roles as Executive Associate Director at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences , on the UC Davis Graduate Education Committee, and chaired the International Programs Committee for the College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences.

Dr. Lauren Parker is the managing director for Secure Water Future, a $10M multi-state, multi-institution sustainable agricultural systems project funded by USDA-NIFA. She is also the project director for the California Energy Commission FlowPywr project and the project manager for AgAID at UC Merced. Lauren's background is in applied climatology at the intersection of natural and working lands, primarily focusing on issues surrounding perennial agriculture and agricultural water resources in a changing climate. She brings her experience with stakeholder outreach, science communication, education, and team facilitation, to bear in leading multidisciplinary and decision-enabling projects on some of our most pressing societal challenges.

Prior to joining UC Merced, Lauren was an applied climate scientist, research program manager, and program coordinator at the USDA California Climate Hub and a project scientist at UC Davis. Lauren has also held positions as a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis and the University of Idaho. Lauren holds a PhD from the Department of Geography at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho; an MS from the Department of Geoscience at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon; and an AB from the Department of Earth and Environment at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Molly is facilitating the State of the Science of Land Repurposing Workshop. She is a Senior Associate at Environmental Incentives, a certified B-Corp environmental consulting company working with clients and partners to co-create effective solutions that produce lasting impact. Molly also brings insights from implementing support for the CA Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program (MLRP) through her role of supporting EDF and Self-Help Enterprises, the co-leads of the MLRP Statewide Support Entity.