Board & Officers, ISET-International

Board of Directors

Marcus Moench: President of ISET. Dr. Moench has extensive experience working with communities, non-government, government and international organisations on water, energy and forest management in South Asia, the Middle East and the Western United States. He combines a strong technical background in environmental science, hydrogeology and forestry with training and experience in the design and initiation of management institutions. He led the India Water Sector Review, Groundwater Component and Yemen Decentralised Management Study for the World Bank. Dr. Moench received his Ph.D from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989. He has published numerous articles and papers on natural resources management.

Dipak Gyawali: Vice-President, ISET; Member of the Board, ISET-Nepal; Member of the Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology and the New York Academy of Sciences. Nepal's former Minister for Water Resources (2003), Mr. Gyawali is also member of the International Advisory Board of the US-based Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which produced the study on Human Choice and Climate Change and member of the International Research Committee of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in Colombo. Mr. Gyawali has served on several government commissions related to Himalayan water and energy resources development in Nepal. He has published extensively both academically and in the popular press on water resource, environment and development issues. He helped found Nepal Water Conservation Foundation. Until 1996, he served as Chairman of Grameen Swabalamban Bikas Kendra, a grassroots NGO working for rural poverty alleviation with 800 income generating groups in 14 districts of Nepal. He has served as Chairman of Duryog Nivaran, a South Asian initiative promoting alternative perspectives on disaster mitigation, particularly floods, droughts and conflict-related stress.

Tushaar Shah: Current director of the Institutions and Governance program at the International Water Management Institute. Dr. Shah served for over fifteen years, most recently as director, on the faculty of the Institute of Rural Management in Gujarat, India. He is well known for his publications on water markets and the role they play in poverty alleviation and rural development. Dr. Shah is currently on the board of many local non-governmental organisations working on rural development and the management of natural resources in India.

N.S. Jodha: Currently a senior policy analyst at ICIMOD in Kathmandu. Dr. Jodha has worked and published extensively on common property resource management issues in India and Nepal and worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. for three years.

David Brooks: Founder and Director of Research, Friends of the Earth, Canada. Dr. Brooks recently retired from the International Development Research Centre, Canada, where he was Senior Program Officer. Dr. Brooks has worked and written extensively on water management and biodiversity in many countries. He co-authored the book Watershed chronicling the role of fresh water in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ajaya Dixit: Founder and Director, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation; Editor, Water Nepal, a journal addressing Himalayan water and development; Chairman of the Board of Directors, Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH), a Nepali NGO that has built water supply schemes serving over 350,000 people in Nepal. Mr. Dixit taught hydraulics at Tribhuvan University's Institute of Engineering until 1989 and recently authored the current leading textbook in hydraulics, published in 2002, Basic Water Science. He has worked extensively as a consultant on water resources and environment for bilateral and multilateral organisations in Nepal. Mr. Dixit served as a member of the National Preparatory Committee for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio Conference (1992). He also represented the private sector in His Majesty's Government of Nepal Water and Energy Commission from 1994 to 1997.

Denise Bebbington: Ms. Bebbington is a former program officer with the InterAmerican Foundation's Andean Region. She has worked on Latin American development issues for over sixteen years. Ms. Bebbington's recent research interests include civil society and local development, financial services for the poor, and private sector investment in social and environmental programs.

Arlene Blum: A well-known mountaineer and writer, Ms. Blum's first book, Annapurna: A woman’s place is a mountaineering classic and her new book, Breaking Trail: A climber’s life is certain to be as well. In addition to many other ascents, Ms. Blum led the first American and only women’s expedition up Annapurna and joined the second American expedition up Everest. Although Ms. Blum is widely recognized as one of the first women to achieve international prominence as a mountaineer, what is less widely known are her abilities as a scientist, activist, consultant and cross-cultural leadership trainer. As a scientist and activist, Ms. Blum’s work has led to the banning of carcinogenic fire-retardants in clothing. As a leadership consultant and cross-cultural trainer, Ms. Blum has helped many companies identify strategies for working across cultures and achieving business goals in an increasingly globalized world. In addition to the above experiences, Ms. Blum brings two key assets to the Board. First and foremost is her vision and, through her own example, her ability to encourage others to take on interesting, complicated challenges. Second, she has extensive connections and is often able to offer advice on key contacts able to help with ISET’s mission.  

David Bonnett: Owner of CIO Works, a technology service company. Mr. Bonnett has a strong background in geography and environmental science and has worked closely with Global Green Grants, Global Response and other organizations working on the nexus between environmental and international development issues. Mr. Bonnett brings direct knowledge of key technology and communication options and can offer particular advice for a networked organization such as ISET.

Brian Underhill: Mr. Underhill has worked with local nonprofits for several years. He has been on the boards of the Chinook Fund, a Colorado progressive foundation, and the Funding Exchange, a national umbrella organization. He has worked extensively with Boulder 's Friendship City Projects doing water and other development work in Nicaragua , and has spent time in other Central American countries. Mr. Underhill is currently managing a small high tech company in Boulder . He is an avid mountaineer and has climbed in many countries, including Nepal .

Michael (Mickey) Glantz: Director of the new Center for Capacity Building at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Dr. Glantz is a Senior Scientist and was the Director of the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group for 17 years. Dr. Glantz is interested in how climate affects society and how society affects climate, especially in how the interaction between climate anomalies and human activities affect quality of life issues. His research relates to:
        ◦   African drought; desertification; food production problems and prospects
        ◦   Societal impacts of climate anomalies related to El Niño events; the use of El Niño-related teleconnections to forecast these impacts
        ◦   Developing methods of forecasting possible societal responses to the regional impacts of climate change
        ◦   The use of climate-related information for economic development
Dr. Glantz has also coordinated joint research in the Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union , with a special interest in the Aral Sea basin. In 1999, Cambridge University Press published a book he edited on "Creeping Environmental Problems and Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea Basin". He has edited several books and is the author of numerous articles on issues related to climate, environment, and policy. He organizes multidisciplinary, multinational workshops on climate-related issues. Dr. Glantz used to write a column for the Boulder Planet. He maintains those columns and new ones on his Fragilecologies web site. Prior to that, he wrote a biweekly newspaper column, "Environmental Minute" for the Boulder Daily Camera.  

Officers

Ms. Elisabeth Caspari: Assistant Director, ISET. Ms. Caspari has substantial experience working throughout South Asia. Ms. Caspari is multilingual, with expertise in translating the results of scientific writing, particularly from different cultures, for the general public and policy audiences.

Ms. Sonam Bennett-Vasseux: Research Associate and Treasurer, ISET. Ms. Bennett-Vasseux has extensive experience working in Nepal within the UN system, with NGOs and in the tourism industry. She is multilingual and has assisted in the production of research and policy documents on environmental issues in Nepal and elsewhere.