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Congratulations to Dr. David Kaplan and the 2015 WIGF Faculty Team! ,

Congratulations to the Water Institute faculty team, led by Dr. David Kaplan, who has been awarded the 2015 Water Institute Graduate Fellows (WIGF) Program!

The faculty team includes David Kaplan (Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment), Stephanie Bohlman and Denis Valle (School of Forest Resources and Conservation, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences), Kai Lorenzen (School of Natural Resources and Environment), Cynthia Simmons and Bob Walker (Geography, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences), and Simone Athayde (Tropical Conservation and Development, Center for Latin American Studies). The award will support six new PhD students beginning in Fall 2015.

The team’s proposal, "Hydrologic transformation in the Amazon basin: reconciling economy, society, and the environment in the world’s largest watershed” brings together students and faculty from the biophysical and social sciences to address the complex and interactive set of impacts brought about by the construction and operation of dams and other hydraulic infrastructure in the Amazon. The faculty team are also members of the Amazon Dam Network, an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, multi-national effort to provide an integrated understanding of the two-way links between energy production, environmental conservation and human well-being in the Amazonian region.

The WIGF program is made possible by support from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Natural Resources and Environment, the Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment and the Water Institute. The goal of the program is to meet the challenges of educating Ph.D. students with a deep knowledge in chosen disciplines, a strong holistic understanding of the bio-physical, technological, ecological, social and economic challenges to sustaining water resources, and a broad range of interdisciplinary skills.