Panel to Discuss Water Issues at Sigma Xi Annual Meeting
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC - Peter H. Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, will join Andras Szollosi-Nagy, director of UNESCO's Division of Water Sciences, and Peter Thum, founder of Ethos Water, for a special panel discussion on Saturday, November 22, at the 2008 Sigma Xi Annual Meeting and Student Research Conference in Washington, D.C.
The panel discussion is just one facet of the annual meeting November 20-23 at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel. It is part of Sigma Xi's year-long focus on the issue of water.
Peter H. Gleick
Peter Gleick is co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. His research and writing address the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international conflicts over water resources. An internationally recognized water expert, Gleick was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2003. The BBC has dubbed him a "visionary on the environment." He is an Academician of the International Water Academy (Oslo, Norway) and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He serves on the boards of numerous journals and organizations, and is the author of many scientific papers and six books, including the biennial water report, The World's Water, published by Island Press.
Andras Szollosi-Nagy
Born in 1949 in Budapest, Hungary, Andras Szollosi-Nagy is director of the Division of Water and secretary of the International Hydrological Programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Since 2000 he has also served as deputy assistant director-general of the Natural Sciences Sector. Szollosi-Nagy is a life member of the International Water Academy and a member of the board of governors of the World Water Council. He is a civil engineer with a doctorate in hydrology and mathematical statistics from the Budapest University of Technology. In 1972 he joined the Water Resources Research Center and later was a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Szollosi-Nagy has worked with IBM Italy on the Arno River Forecasting System and has been a visiting professor, lecturer and consultant on hydrological forecasting in a number of countries. He is a professor of hydrodynamics at the Technical University of Budapest. In 2005, he was presented the Distinguished Associate Award of the International Association of Hydrogeologists. He has published several books and more than 150 technical papers.
Peter Thum
Peter Thum is the founder of Ethos™ Water (www.ethoswater.com) and vice president of Starbucks. Thum manages Ethos™ Water's business strategy and directs Ethos' philanthropic work. Thum had the idea for Ethos in 2001 following a six month consulting project in South Africa, where he saw water issues firsthand. Initially he wrote the idea on a napkin, which he turned into a business plan. Early in 2002 he left his job to pursue his vision. He built Ethos through to its acquisition by Starbucks in 2005. Today, Ethos is sold in more than 8,000 Starbucks stores and is marketed and distributed by Pepsi to other retailers across North America. Ethos will grant at least $10 million by 2010 to humanitarian water programs. To date, Ethos grants exceed $6.2 million and will help more than 420,000 people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to get safe water, sanitation, and hygiene education. Thum has been profiled by various media, including: USA Today, National Public Radio, CBC News, Fortune Small Business, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Business Week, and The Yale Journal of Public Health. He speaks regularly about the founding of Ethos Water, social entrepreneurship, ethical branding, and corporate responsibility, and has been a guest lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, among others. Prior to founding Ethos, Thum was a consultant with McKinsey & Company in London. He held various marketing and sales roles with Gallo Winery in the US and Europe. Before Gallo, Thum was an English teacher for Siemens A.G. in Munich, Germany. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College. He served on the Board of Directors of the Starbucks Foundation from 2005 to 2008. Thum holds a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts in government from Claremont McKenna College.
