Bio
Bruce A. McCarl is a University Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. His areas of speciality include climate change economics, water, agricultural policy, managerial economics, and quantitative analysis. His climate-change-related projects include work on agricultural vulnerability, adaptation, and greenhouse gas mitigation in addition to roles as lead agricultural economic analyst on the 2001 US National Climate Change Assessment, a participant in the 2010 National Academy America’s Climate Choices study, and lead author of the 2007 and 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports. Dr. McCarl is Deputy Editor of Climatic Change. In recognition of his work, he is a fellow of three Agricultural Economics Associations and was a participant in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He is the author of over 310 journal articles and 400 other papers/presentations and has participated in research that has received a total sponsorship of over USD 95 million. He holds a PhD from Pennsylvania State University in Management Science. In this talk, he will report on work involving shifting the locus of agricultural production and supporting its infrastructure.

Research Keywords
Climate Change; Climate Change Mitigation; Agricultural Economics

Bio
Dr. Azad Hossain is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, Geology, and Environmental Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is the Principal Investigator of the Geological and Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory at UTC. Dr. Hossain is a geologist, geological engineer, and environmental geoscientist with expertise in geospatial technology. He earned his Ph.D. in Geological Engineering from the University of Mississippi. Before joining UTC, he worked as a Research Scientist and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the National Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering and as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering at the University of Mississippi. With almost 30 years of experience working with geospatial data and technologies, Dr. Hossain specializes in their applications in earth and environmental sciences. His research focuses on integrating geospatial technologies with numerical models to enhance understandings of physical environments and the impacts of human–environment interactions. His current research involves developing remote sensing (satellite-based observations) and GIS-based models to estimate surface water quality, map and monitor urban growth, analyze urban heat island (UHI) effects, and predict landslides. His work is driven by both scientific discovery and regional applications. Currently, Dr. Hossain serves as the President of the Mid-South Region of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing .

Research Keywords
environmental science; microwave remote sensing; flood inundation

Bio
Akira Tokuhiro became a Professor at the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Ontario Institute of Technology (“Ontario Tech”) in Oshawa, Ontario in February 2017 and was Dean there until September 2021. His main areas of interest are climate change, energy, nuclear energy, and complex issues and problems based on data science. He joined Ontario Tech from NuScale Power LLC (US), a startup that received Design Certification Application approval of its SMR (small modular reactor) design. Before that, he served as Director and Professor of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at the University of Idaho. He has also held appointments at Pacific Northwest (PNNL), Idaho and Argonne National Laboratories in the U.S. At PNNL, he served on the US-DOE team during the US–Japan bilateral meetings on nuclear energy R&D. He holds a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering (Purdue University), an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (University of Rochester), a B.S.E. in Engineering-Physics (Purdue University), and 10 years of international R&D experience at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) and Japan Atomic Energy Agency. Notably, he served on the American Nuclear Society President’s Committee on the Fukushima Accident and served as technical editor on a book on the accident, “On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi”. Subsequently, movie (Fukushima 50) and Netflix Japan series (The Days) were based on this book and the original Japanese best-seller.

Research Keywords
nuclear systems, design nuclear engineering, nuclear reactor, safety energy