Dr. David Faiman is the director and founder of the The Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center. He serves as a professor at Ben-Gurion University and as chair of the Department of Energy and Environmental Physics at the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research. The Department of Energy and Environmental Physics is an interdisciplinary research group that includes scientists with training in geography, meteorology, mechanical engineering, applied mathematics, physics and chemistry. Research work at the department covers various aspects of the physical environment. These include solar energy utilization and applied optics, the desert climate, and remote sensing and modeling of desertification.
Dr. Faiman was born in the United Kingdom, and attained his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 1969. His research interests include: solar Radiation solar energy, solar electric power, solar energy conversion systems, solar energy devices, and photovoltaic and solar-thermal conversion.
Among Dr. Faiman's current research projects are: a Negev Desert Solar Radiation Survey, Solar Spectral Studies, and work on Concentrator Photovoltaics.
Dr. Penny Kris-Etherton's research explores how nutrients and other bioactive constituents affect established and emerging risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Dr. Kris-Etherton has also actively explored the health effects of fatty acids.
Dr. Kris-Etherton is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. She received her B.S. in Medical Dietetics with honors from the Rochester Institute of Technology and her M.S. in Nutrition from Case Western Reserve University. She earned a Ph.D. in Human Nutrition from the University of Minnesota in 1978. Dr. Kris-Etherton was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University in lipid metabolism in the Division of Gastroenterology from 1978 to 1979. In 1979, she became an Assistant Professor of Nutrition and ADA Plan IV Program Director at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Kris-Etherton was promoted to Associate Professor in 1985 and Full Professor in 1989. She is currently Distinguished Professor of Nutrition.
Throughout her career Dr. Kris-Etherton has played a role in the widespread communication of nutrition messages to health professionals, government representatives, consumers and the media.
Dr. Kris-Etherton has published over 150 scientific papers, 10 book chapters and co-authored 4 books. Her research program has been funded by NIH, USDA and the private sector. She is the recipient of the Lederle Award for Human Nutrition Research awarded in 1991 by the American Society for Nutritional Sciences and in 1998 she was selected for the Foundation Award for Excellence in Research by the American Dietetic Association and became a Fellow in the American Heart Association in 2001. In 2005, she received the Elaine Monsen Research Award from the American Dietetic Association Foundation.
Dr. Kris-Etherton has served on many national committees and review panels including the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee, the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Macronutrients, the American Heart Association Nutrition Committee, NIH's Nutrition Study Section, the National Cholesterol Education Program Second Adult Treatment Panel, the ASCN/AIN Task Force on Trans Fatty Acids, and WomenHeart. She has held numerous editorial board appointments, including journals such as Lipids, Current Atherosclerosis Reports, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, the Journal of Nutrition Education and the International Journal of Sports Nutrition.
Currently, Dr. Kris-Etherton is studying the effects of diet on plasma lipid and lipoprotein metabolism and platelet function, and serves as the Didactic Program Director for the American Dietetic Association (ADA).
Amy K. Zander is professor and director of the Interdisciplinary Engineering and Management program at Clarkson University. She has studied water and water treatment processes for more than a quarter century. She recently chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Advancing Desalination Technology.
Dr. Zander's research interests include drinking water treatment, treatment process design, membrane systems in environmental separations, life cycle assessment, and industrial ecology. They involve the areas of physical and chemical separations in environmental systems (especially drinking water and wastewater treatment technologies) and how contaminants move in the environment. She discovers new solutions for safe drinking water and for minimal impact of treatment systems on the natural environment. Sustainable solutions to environmental problems require efficient and effective use of energy throughout a systems life cycle, and Dr. Zander studies the life cycle of industrial processes. Because sustainable water treatment systems should be applicable in less developed countries she works with development of appropriate technologies for use without intensive resources.
A faculty member at Clarkson since 1991, Dr. Zander became an associate professor in 1997, and was named full professor in 2003. She was the associate dean for Academic Programs in the Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering 2005 to 2007.
Dr. Zander received her B.S. in biology and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Her honors include the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Distinguished Service Award in 2005; the 2003 Samuel Arnold Greeley Award from the Environmental and Water Resources Institute, a division of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the 2001 Boeing Outstanding Educator Award, the 2000 AEESP/McGraw Hill Award for Outstanding Teaching in Environmental Engineering and Science, Clarkson's 1999 Distinguished Teaching Award, and the 1996 Dow Outstanding New Faculty Award for the Middle Atlantic Section of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Zander has published dozens of journal articles, written and co-written numerous book chapters, and delivered papers at academic conferences throughout North America. She has managed research projects totaling over $800, 000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Water Works Association Research Foundation, and other funding agencies.
Dr. Zander has served on two prior committees of the National Academy of Sciences, producing the report Safe Water from Every Tap: Improving Water Service to Small Communities in 1997 and Confronting the Nation's Water Problems: The Role of Research in 2004. Dr. Zander served on the National Research Council's Committee on Small Water Supply Systems and on the Committee on Assessment of Water Resources Research.
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