GUEST SPEAKER

STRUCTURING AND USE OF SCIENCE-BASED DECISION SUPPPORT SYSTEMS IN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

Prof. Hilary I. Inyang
Botswana Institute of Science and Technology, Botswana

Biography of the Guest Speaker

Prof. Inyang is currently the Vice Chancellor of Vice Chancellor, Botswana International University of Science and technology (BIUST), Palapye and served from 2001 to 2013 as the Duke Energy Distinguished Professor of Environmental Engineering and Science, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA; Prof. Inyang has made more than two decades of technical and policy contributions to regional and global sustainable development as an educator/administrator, researcher, government official and corporate leader. He is a former President of the African University of Science and Technology, Abuja, Nigeria and Founding Director of the Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems (GIEES) at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. In 2008, he was a finalist for the position of United Nations Under Secretary-General and Rector of United Nations University in Tokyo. He was the President of the International Society for Environmental Geotechnology (ISEG) and leads the Global Alliance for Disaster Reduction (GADR). In 2008, he was selected as a Technical Judge of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. From 1997 to 2001, he was the Chair of the Environmental Engineering Committee of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board, and also served on the Effluent Guidelines Committee of the National Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. Prior to his position at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, he was DuPont Professor/University Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts, where he helped establish the Graduate School of Marine Science and Technology of the University System, while serving as the Founding Director of the Lowell-based Center for Environmental Engineering, Science and Technology (1995 - 2000). He taught previously at Purdue University, George Washington University and the University of Wisconsin-Platteville where he started his academic career 22 years ago. He has helped establish research institutes and operate educational programs in Brazil, Japan, Korea, India, Canada, Nigeria, Ghana, United Arab Emirates and China at where he has been an Honorary Professor/Concurrent Professor (CUMT and Nanjing University) since 2004 and 1999, respectively.
Prof. Hilary was the first black person to be endowed as a distinguished professor in environmental engineering in the United States, as well as the first African immigrant to Chair a Committee of the congressionally mandated national science advisory body of a US agency. During his career in academe, the private sector and government, he has developed innovative materials, systems (including GEORAD Barrier Concept) and performance estimation tools for long-term (100-10,000 years) containment of contaminants and suppression of dust to reduce environmental and health risks in climatic zones, ranging from the hot/humid tropic to the frigid Arctic. He has led/performed research expeditions to Jiangsu Province of China on mining subsidence and erosion; Siberia (Russia) on oil spills; Niger Delta of Nigeria on oil spills; Alaska on Permafrost degradation due to global climate change; and Minas Gerais region of Brazil on fugitive dust emission studies. Hilary is a prolific developer of analytical frameworks, quantitative models and field-relevant data that have been used by agencies, researchers, private firms and students worldwide. He pioneered the incorporation of fundamental chemo dynamic mechanisms into contaminant leachability models for estimating emission source terms for materials under scenarios in which they are subjected to both load and environmental stresses. His models and experimental data on physic-chemical interactions between natural/synthetic polymers and lateritic soils have provided rational bases for aqueous polymer application in dust control to safeguard human health in many countries. Among the several national and international environmental and economic development programmes that he has contributed to are the Nigerian Governments’ programmes on oil spills management; environmental hazards control in Africa; science and technology development in Africa; and research support.
He has authored/co-authored more than 260 research articles, book chapters, federal design manuals and the textbook, Geoenvironmental Engineering: principles and applications, published by Marcel Dekker (ISBN: 0-8247-0045-7). His research and professional focus are on contaminant leaching and dusting from materials, containment systems and materials for barriers, energy systems and geohazards. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Energy Engineering of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), an associate editor/editorial board member of 27 refereed international journals and contributing editor of three books, including the United Nations Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (Environmental Monitoring Section). Professor Inyang has served on more than 100 technical and policy panels of governments and professional societies, and has given more than 130 invited speeches and presentations on a variety of technical and policy issues at many institutions and agencies in several countries, including the Goldberg-Zoino Lecture at MIT (1994), the AMOCO Foundation Lecture at Iowa State university (1996), the ALCOA Endowed Lecture at Carnegie-Mellon University (2002), and addresses at the Parliament of Switzerland in Bern (2001) and Nigerian Senate Environmental Committee (2008). He has chaired/co-chaired international conferences in Korea, Japan, Turkey, the United States, Brazil, Finland, Canada, Slovenia, Ghana, China and Nigeria. Professor Inyang holds a Ph.D. with a double major in Geotechnical Engineering and Materials, and a minor in Mineral Resources from Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa; an M.S. and B.S. in Civil Engineering from North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota; and a B.Sc. (Honors) in Geology from the University of Calabar, Nigeria.
He has served as principal investigator, co-principal investigator and implementation leader on 40 projects. His research has been sponsored by NOAA, FHWA, USDOE, USDOD, USNRC, DuPont Corporation, Sandia National Laboratory, Duke Energy Corporation and the National Science Foundation. For his research contributions to advances in geoenvironmental science and engineering, professional practice in many countries, and public policies on energy and environmental issues, he has received several professional honors, including selection as a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, the 1999 Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell; 2001 Swiss Forum Fellow selection by the American Association for the Advancement of Science ; the 1996 US National Research Council Young Investigator Selection; 1992 Eisenhower-Jennings Randolph Award of the International Public Works Federation/World Affairs Institute that was instituted to honor the international achievements of former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower; the 1991 American Association for the Advancement of Science/USEPA Environmental Science and Engineering Fellowship; and election (by eminence) as a Board-Certified Member (BCEEM) of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (2006). On October 2, 2002, he was honored in Washington, DC at a ceremony organized by the US Government to honor 10 environmental scientists for technical contributions to the United States through the USEPA.