CNR offers global executive education programs
Through expert-led workshops and conferences, the College of Natural Resources’ International and Executive Programs (IEP) equips leaders from around the globe with the tools they need to create positive environmental, societal, and economic change. Established in 2014, IEP leverages the unparalleled faculty of the College and their network of leaders in industry and government to provide a stimulating environment for learning and innovation.
IEP is now the home of the renowned Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program, which boasts 615 participant alumni. IEP’s open enrollment and custom programs offer career professionals the chance to expand their knowledge and networks in the fields of climate change, environmental policy and economics, energy, agrifood, supply chains, human health and safety, sustainable development, natural resources management, and biodiversity.
According to director Mio Owens, IEP is set to expand programming significantly in the coming year. “The professionals who come to IEP are already driven, ambitious, and on a quest to leave a mark in their field,” she said. “IEP offers programs that support them in transforming their aspirations into accomplishments that serve the greater good and fulfill CNR’s commitment to delivering real solutions to the global community.”
Join us for upcoming IEP events:
- Agrifood Supply Chain Programs: November 2016, Germany, and April 2017, Berkeley
- Spatial Data Science: Spring 2017, Berkeley
- Modern Competitive Strategy Program: March 2017, Thailand
- Environmental Leadership Short Course: May 2017, Singapore
- Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program: Summer 2017, Berkeley
- Economic Tools for Conservation: Summer 2017, Berkeley
For more details visit the IEP website.
Berkeley's newest noble Spot is reserved for bikes
One of the highlights of a Berkeley campus tour is spotting the parking spaces reserved for Berkeley’s 10 Nobel laureates. Now there’s a brand-new “NL” parking spot, and it can be used by anyone. Anyone, that is, who commutes to campus by bicycle.
The Nobel laureate bike parking spot, which was installed last spring, sits to the left of a cluster of bike racks outside the entrance to the Free Speech Movement Café. The sign honors Berkeley faculty who contributed to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former vice president Al Gore in 2007. The Nobel was given for joint efforts by Gore and the IPCC “to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
Berkeley’s contributors to the IPCC research included Dan Kammen, a professor of energy and the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, whose tongue-in-cheek comment at a 2013 panel discussion on climate change at the Goldman School of Public Policy planted the idea for an NL bike spot.
“Dan joked that while Nobelists get NL parking spots, maybe [the Berkeley IPCC contributors] should at least get an NL bike rack,” said John Wilton, who was the vice chancellor for administration and finance at the time and helped organize and introduced the 2013 panel. “Dan and I thought it would be a good, lighthearted way,” he added, “of recognizing both the contribution made by Berkeley to the Nobel Prize and the virtues of cycling as a way to commute.”
Idea Incubator: Science to Solutions @CNR
The challenge of conserving our natural resources—while also sustaining healthy and equitable human societies—is one that requires large, innovative initiatives that can make significant impacts. Last spring, the CNR Executive Committee of the Faculty envisioned a new program to help the College of Natural Resources incubate just these types of innovations, and Science to Solutions @CNR was born.
Created by faculty who are experts in their fields, the resulting six ideas are about making real change. They offer visions for sustainability, biodiversity, and support for the earth’s resilience even as we put our ecosystems under ever-increasing stress. They imagine a concentrated effort to create a sustainable bioeconomy—involving agriculture, agritourism, aquaculture, biotechnology, biofuels, green chemistry, and more—that allows for the use of renewable biological resources while ensuring biodiversity and environmental protection. And they propose combating chronic diseases linked to obesity through a comprehensive consideration of research and clinical studies in the realm of metabolic systems, combined with education and outreach on diet and nutrition.
Check out the Science to Solutions @CNR website for videos detailing each idea.
CNR's Ideas for Impact
- Resilience Measured: The Key to a Sustainable Future - John Battles, Forest Ecologist
- Berkeley Center for Metabolic Health and Disease - Andreas Stahl, Metabolic Nutritional Biologist
- Water-Food-People Nexus - Dennis Baldocchi, Bioenvironmental Engineer
- An Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity - Steven Beissinger, Conservation Biologist
- Building the Bioeconomy - David Zilberman, Environmental Economist
- Understanding and Conserving California Biodiversity in a Changing Climate - Patrick O’Grady, Biologist and Geneticist
Faculty Accolades
Professor Kris Niyogi, chair of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in May. Niyogi studies photosynthetic energy conversion and its regulation in algae and plants.
Professor Steven Beissinger of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management was named to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was cited for his distinguished contributions to conservation biology and avian population biology, with respect to endangered species, climate change, avian parental care, and long-term studies of tropical parrots.
Professor Hei Sook Sul of the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology was one of six UC Berkeley faculty members selected as Fulbright Scholars last year. During the yearlong fellowship, she conducted research at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology and the University of Strasbourg in France.