Osu

Confirmed Speakers

• Mark Owen
  Mark Owen is an OSU Mechanical Engineering alumni. He has invented a very unique water treatment technology and started Puralytics (http://www.puralytics.com/html/home.php). His processes are environmentally and cost effective requiring no chemicals or additives, generating no waste water, with no pressure loss. His products are winning global technology awards. The product with the largest potential impact for disadvantaged countries is the SolarBag. Mark Owen will discuss the future of water and how technology can help sustain it.
• Dr. John Selker
  Dr. Selker was born in 1960 in Seattle Washington (USA). He completed his Bachelor Physics in 1981 from Reed College in Portland Oregon (USA). He worked as a consulting engineer in the USA (electro-mechanical design), Kenya, Somalia, Sri Lanka and England (development projects focused on household cooking) from 1981-1987, receiving his MS in 1989 and Ph.D. in 1991 from Cornell University. Dr. Selker has been a professor in the department of Biological and Ecological Engineering at Oregon State University since 1991 and has published >120 peer reviewed publications and a text book. Current research projects include a broad suite of methodologies, including fiber optic sensing of temperature for ecological monitoring, the role of swelling soils in runoff processes, and new methods for measuring rainfall, humidity, and the interception of rain by trees. He is co-founder of SelkerMetrics.com, an environmental monitoring company that has been active in projects in the US and Canada. He is also one of six editors of the journal “Water Resources Research.” He has current research projects funded by the NSF, DoD, NOAA, BOR, and state agencies.
• Dr. Kendra Sharp
  Dr. Sharp is engaged in the areas of sustainable energy for developing countries and international emphases in engineering research and education. Her current research interests include experimental fluid mechanics, mixing, flow diagnostic techniques, multi-phase flows, and microfluidics for biological and energy applications. In addition to her faculty appointment in the School of MIME, Dr. Sharp is also an associate director of the Microproducts Breakthrough Institute (MBI), a collaboration between Oregon State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory committed to developing micro- and nanotechnologies for sustainable energy, healthy environments, and improved lives.
• Jim Walls
  Jim Walls is the Executive Director for the LAKE COUNTY RESOURCES INITIATIVE (LCRI), a non-profit working on natural resource projects. Prior to coming to LCRI, Jim worked for Natural Resource Conservation Service retiring after 33 years. Jim’s main efforts today with LCRI involves biomass development, carbon credits systems for forestry, third party monitoring on the Fremont National Forest and collaborative forest management. In addition to biomass Jim is working on geothermal, hydro, solar and wind energy projects in Lake County. It is the goal of Lake County to become Oregon’s Most Renewable Energy County and offset all carbon from fossil fuels. Jim served 5 years as an advisor at the University of Washington initiating several forest carbon research projects. Jim served on the Governor’s Renewable Energy Workgroup helping develop policy and legislation for renewable energy in Oregon. Jim was a member of the Governor’s Oregon Way Advisory Group assisting the Governor in prioritizing appropriate projects for the federal stimulus dollars.