Charles J. Vörösmarty

Dr., Environmental Sciences Initiative Director, The City College of New York

Dr. Charles Vörösmarty is founding and current Director of the Environmental Sciences Initiative at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center and Professor of Civil Engineering at the City College of New York. He is a senior researcher, with nearly 50 years of experience. He has led numerous interdisciplinary study teams carrying out research on hydrology and water resource systems worldwide; strategic regional water-environment-food-energy risks; and, global threats to human water security and aquatic biodiversity. He has led interdisciplinary study teams using earth system models to assess the impact of water resource management worldwide and how they generate downstream coastal zone risks, strategic U.S. national and regional-scale water-environment-energy risks, and global threats to human water security and aquatic biodiversity. He served as co-Chair of the Global Water System Project. In the U.S. he was on the Artic Research Commission (appointed by Presidents Bush and Obama), the NASA Earth Science Subcommittee, the National Research Council Committee on Hydrologic Science (as Chair), and the NRC Review Committee on the U.S. Global Change Research Program. His recent work focuses on the capacity of traditional engineering (gray) and nature-based (green) infrastructure to contribute to global water security. In 2018, he helped to lead a U.S.-Hungarian graduate student research project on sustainable regional re-development in the western part of Hungary, where he continues to advise the government and academic partners on best combinations of grey-green and human institutional infrastructures.