Advisory Board

Adell Amos

Adell Amos is a faculty member at the University of Oregon School of Law, where she holds the Clayton R. Hess Professorship and serves as the Executive Director for the Environment Initiative at the University of Oregon. Her research is focused on the jurisdictional governance structures in the United States and internationally for water resources management, including the relationship between federal and state governments on water resource management, the role of administrative agencies in setting national, state, and local water policy, and the impact of stakeholder participation in water resource decision-making. In 2008, Adell accepted a two-year appointment with the Obama Administration as the Deputy Solicitor for Land and Water Resources at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Prior to joining University of Oregon, Adell practiced environmental and natural resources law with the U.S. Department of Interior in Washington D.C., where she worked on water and natural resources issues in the Office of the Solicitor, Division of Parks and Wildlife, and advised the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service on state and federal water rights and water management issues.

Gordon Grant

Gordon Grant is a Research Hydrologist for the U.S. Forest Service, at the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Corvallis, Oregon. Gordon is also a courtesy professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. Gordon’s research focuses on response of stream networks, watersheds, and landscapes to changes in streamflow, sediment transport, and wood entrainment, as well as the geomorphic response of rivers to changes in streamflow and sediment transport due to land use, dams and dam removal, volcanic eruptions, and climate change. His work has included extended collaborations with research groups in Japan, China, and Italy. He is currently President of the Earth and Planetary Surface Processes Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a former Deputy and Associate Editor for the journal Water Resources Research, and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and Geological Society of America. He also serves on the board of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences.

Andrea Keller Helsel

Andrea Keller Helsel is a Program Officer in Environment at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She manages the western conservation portfolio to conserve lands and rivers and promote clean energy in the Western United States and Canada. Before joining the foundation, Andrea served as national director of strategy at the Western Conservation Foundation. Prior to that, Andrea led the media relations team at the National Parks Conservation Association, where she helped to secure critical federal funding and enhanced protections for America’s national parks. She has also worked in consumer marketing and public relations.

Katharine Jacobs

Katharine Jacobs is director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona, and served from 2009 to 2013 as director of the National Climate Assessment in President Obama’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, and also as lead water advisor. Prior to her tenure in the Obama administration, she was professor and specialist in the Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, University of Arizona; executive director of the Arizona Water Institute; and deputy director of the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Sustainability of Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas. Ms. Jacobs’s board and advisory engagements, current and past, include the International Social Science Council, Joint Global Change Research Institute, U.S. Global Change Research Program, Water Education Foundation, American Meteorological Society Board on Global Strategies, California Water Foundation, and Arizona Nature Conservancy, among many others. She is a Senior Fellow of the National Council for Science and the Environment, has contributed to and chaired numerous National Academy of Sciences panels, and is recipient of the National Council for Science and the Environment Award for Outstanding Contributions and the Secretary of the Interior’s Partners in Conservation Award.

Frank Magilligan

Frank Magilligan is a Professor at Dartmouth College. He attended the University of Wisconsin and received a MS in Water Resources Management, a MS in Geography, and a PhD in Geography. He is a Professor in the Geography Department at Dartmouth College and holds the Frank J. Reagan ’09 Chair in Policy Studies, and was just recently elected a Fellow in the Geological Society of America. His research interests focus primarily on fluvial geomorphology and surface water hydrology with particular attention to stream channel and watershed responses to environmental change. Besides his long-term interest in geomorphic responses to large floods, his recent research has concentrated on the hydroecological impacts of dams and of dam removal. He has served on several National Science Foundation Panels and was just recently a co-author of a National Research Council (NRC) report on future research directions in the Geographical Sciences.

Ed Norton

Ed Norton is the Founding and current Chair of the Conservation Lands Foundation, a nonprofit organization that channels local passion to conserve the nation’s public lands. From 2009 to 2019, Ed was a Senior Advisor for Environment/Social Governance to TPG Capital, a private equity firm, where he developed approaches to reduce costs, environmental impact, and associated risks through energy efficiency, waste reduction, natural resource use, and other environmental strategies. Ed served as a federal prosecutor with the United States Attorney in Maryland. Ed has provided counsel, and served on the board, of numerous conservation organizations, including The Wilderness Society, Grand Canyon Trust, Rails-To-Trails Conservancy, National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Nature Conservancy, and the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust.

Kevin Sweeney

Kevin Sweeneyis a Management Consultant with expertise in environmental issues, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and strategic planning. He has run projects framing the public debate around climate change and was chief of staff for the Alliance for Climate Protection. He helps foundations focus their activities, support grantees, and assess the value of philanthropic grants. He helps companies improve their environmental and labor rights records and advises agricultural companies focused on soil health. As an executive at Patagonia, he directed environmental strategies and marketing and helped found the Fair Labor Association. As Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, he played a leading role in protecting the Endangered Species Act and reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone. He served as staff in both houses of Congress, played leading roles on presidential campaigns, and was a reporter for CBS television in Atlanta. He taught courses on stakeholder engagement and CSR in the business school at his alma mater, UC Berkeley.

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Buzz Thompson

Barton H. “Buzz” Thompson, Jr. is the Robert E. Paradise Professor in Natural Resources Law at Stanford Law School and the Perry L. McCarty Director and Senior Fellow of Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment. A widely published author and recognized expert on water resources and other environmental issues, Mr. Thompson was a partner at the law firm of O’Melveny & Meyers, lecturer at the UCLA School of Law, and law clerk to United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. He is a member of the California State Bar and the American Bar Association. Mr. Thompson serves on the boards of The Nature Conservancy of California, the American Farmland Trust, and the Sonoran Institute. He also serves as Special Master for the United States Supreme Court in Montana v. Wyoming, which deals with the waters of the Yellowstone River. He has served on the scientific advisory boards of a variety of organizations, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Kevin Washburn

Kevin Washburn is the dean of the University of Iowa College of Law. His practice and teaching focus on criminal law, contracts, Constitutional and administrative law, as well as federal jurisdiction, Federal Indian law and gaming law. He was a Regents Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law and served as its dean from 2009 to 2012, when he was appointed by President Obama as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior, serving in that role until 2016. Prior to entering academia, he clerked for a judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, worked as a trial attorney and then a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, and served as the general counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission. As an academic, he also has held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota and University of Arizona, and taught at Harvard Law School as the Visiting Oneida Nation Professor. He has published casebooks in the law of gaming and gambling and federal Indian law. He has also chaired the board of the Law School Admission Council, which produces the LSAT. Professor Washburn is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.