Please join us with Dr. Lara Fowler, Penn State’s Chief Sustainability Officer, as she sketches out how she and her colleagues are approaching sustainability at a time of incredible complexity. She will share what is happening with sustainability related education, operations at Penn State - including on-going work to address energy and decarbonization - and how this all fits with Penn State’s land grant mission. She will also explore how individuals and communities might engage, while providing plenty of time for questions and discussion.

Bio:
Lara’s undergraduate interest was in water resource management. Post graduation, she worked for a lobby group representing irrigation districts, then for the Oregon Water Resources Department. She received her law degree from the University of Washington School of Law and worked on projects regarding groundwater use and flooding. In 2012, Lara relocated to State College becoming an adjunct at Penn State Dickinson Law and as a research fellow with the Institute of Energy and the Environment. She taught water and energy law, negotiation and mediation until becoming Penn State’s Chief Sustainability Officer in 2022. She volunteers on the Chesapeake Bay Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee, is currently the chair of the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, is a board member for the Chesapeake Bay Journal, and is a board member for COPA STEP (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Science and Technology Policy Program).