Kent State University hosts its inaugural Water Research Symposium, titled “Human Impacts on Water: Ohio’s Most Important Natural Resource” and co-sponsored by the Cleveland Water Alliance, on Thursday, Nov. 14, from 7-9:30 p.m. and Friday, Nov. 15, from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center in downtown Kent. The purpose of this symposium is to provide opportunities for scholarly interactions between regional and international aquatic scientists and for the general public to learn more about the importance of water. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Kent State has considerable strength in a broad range of the aquatic sciences and related disciplines, including ecology, hydrology and urban studies.

“This symposium will feature internationally renowned aquatic scientists presenting leading-edge research on aquatic-terrestrial linkages and water in the city,” says Grant McGimpsey, Ph.D., Kent State’s vice president for research.

“This is an important venue for raising regional and national awareness on the issues and solutions around water quality and access,” says Jeanette Grasselli Brown, board chairperson of the Cleveland Water Alliance.

The Cleveland Water Alliance is a network of leading corporations, nonprofits, public agencies and academic institutions, including Kent State. Those partners collaborate on regional initiatives and market opportunities, creating a water technology cluster in Northeast Ohio that exports its knowledge and products around the world and builds economic prosperity in the region.

The symposium’s keynote speaker is Peter H. Gleick, Ph.D., co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute, a leading nonprofit research organization working to advance environmental protection, economic development and social equity. Gleick received the prestigious MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and was named “a visionary on the environment” by the BBC. He was elected both an Academician of the International Water Academy, in Oslo, Norway, and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Gleick received his B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He serves on the boards of numerous journals and organizations, and is the author of many scientific papers and nine books, including the influential series The World’s Water and Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water, as well as the 2012 release A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy.

In his keynote “Rights, Wrongs and the Future of Water,” Gleick will address the state of the world’s water problems, recent developments in declaring and implementing the new human right to water, the concept of peak water, and what the future of global water challenges and solutions might look like.

The symposium features invited presentations from nationally renowned water researchers, including Martin Doyle, Ph.D., Duke University; Laura Leff, Ph.D., Kent State; Stephen K. Hamilton, Michigan State University; Margaret A. Palmer, Ph.D., University of Maryland; Peter M. Groffman. Ph.D., Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies; Anne Jefferson, Ph.D., Kent State; Sujay Kaushal, Ph.D., University of Maryland; and Reid Coffman, Ph.D., Kent State.

There will be a poster session and cocktail reception on Nov. 14 at 8:30 p.m. and a panel discussion on urban ecology and hydrology on Nov. 15 at 11:15 a.m.

For more information about the symposium and to register, visit www.kent.edu/research/research-division/water.cfm or call 330-672-0701.

To submit a poster for the poster session, visit http://science.kent.edu/node/add/water-symposium.

For more information about research at Kent State, visit www.kent.edu/research.

For more information about the Cleveland Water Alliance, visit http://alliancewater.rmrdevelopment.com.