Royster Fellows Foster Scholarly Discussion about Water

What's the big deal about water? And what do a journalism professor, geology professor and public health visiting scholar each have to say about it? This was the theme of the Royster Speaker Seminar held on February 20 where fellows gathered to hear perspectives from these varied disciplines about the global water and sanitation crisis.

The Royster Society of Fellows is an interdisciplinary fellowship of The Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Private donors fund this select group of graduate students. From disciplines across campus, the Fellows meet regularly to share their research and perspectives and engage in a variety of professional development activities. Additionally, the students organize events on campus to consider various viewpoints on current issues.

This event was the third of the year, and the first to focus on the university-wide water theme. On the panel of the lecture were London School of Hygiene and Tropical Disease Professor Joe Brown, as well as Carolina Associate Professor Tamlin Pavelsky (Geology) and Professor Laura Ruel (Journalism and Mass Communication).

Brown, a UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus, discussed questions surrounding infectious disease due to improper sanitation. He says there are 2.5 billion people without basic improved sanitation. If basic sanitation could reach those parts of the world, questions still linger about who would build the latrines, how they would be maintained and where the waste would be contained. The infrastructure issue includes constant reevaluations of how safe new sanitation would be, an issue complicated by emerging contaminants such as chemicals.

The Powering a Nation program, headed by Ruel, sought to spread light on the various ways Americans use water. This year's multimedia initiative, titled 100 Gallons, showed how water-rich our nation is, and how integral water is to our daily lives, through video, text, and graphics. The project encourages viewers to think critically about water use without being critical.

Pavelsky asked a question beyond, "What's the big deal about water?" He asked, "Where is it?" Pavelsky works with satellite imagery to improve the understanding science has of water sources that can be used for consumption and agriculture. He can measure water sources throughout the world, including in those countries that don't share water information.

Event organizers and Royster fellows Sara Hanson and Maya Nadimpalli were excited to hold this interdisciplinary panel to address the various issues surrounding the university theme of Water in Our World. Hanson is a geology student finishing her dissertation on volcanoes, and Nadimpalli is a first-year environmental engineering doctorate student.

The panel concluded with questions from attendees, many of whom were Royster fellows. The professors addressed topics such as desalination, how conservation locally can affect water sources abroad, and how the price of water is tied to energy. The event was a perfect example of how the Royster fellows foster scholarly exploration of hugely significant world problems.

 

Royster Speaker Seminar

Panelists at the Royster Speaker Seminar.

Event organizers and Royster fellows Sara Hanson and Maya Nadimpalli

Event organizers and Royster fellows Sara Hanson and Maya Nadimpalli.

♦ Laura Lacy