Mel Suffet
Specialties
- Water Quality
- Environmental Chemistry-analysis
- Fate and treatment of hazardous and odorous chemicals
Biographical Information
Dr. Suffet is Professor of Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) and a core member of the Environmental Science and Engineering Program housed in the EHS Department. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Brooklyn College (1961), his M.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Maryland (1964), and his Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Chemistry from Rutgers University (1968). Dr. Suffet joined UCLA in 1991 after 21 years experience at the Department of Chemistry and the Environmental Studies Institute at Drexel University where he was the P. W. Purdom Professor of Environmental Chemistry.
Dr. Suffet has published more than 160 research papers and co-edited eight research treatises. He is the 1983 recipient of the F. J. Zimmerman Environmental Science Award of the American Chemical Society and the 2001 A. P. Black Award for lifetime achievement in drinking water quality research from the American Water Works Association. Dr. Suffet teaches on topics concerning the transport and fate and treatment of organic compounds in aquatic systems, and analytical and environmental chemistry.
Xavier Swamikannu
Biography
Xavier Swamikannu is an Assistant Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Environment and Sustainability. He previously worked for more than twenty years at the California Water Quality Control Board in Los Angeles, and served as its Chief of Storm Water Programs, partnering with UCLA faculty to fund research and bring science into public decision-making. He is an expert in storm water pollution regulatory policy and implementation and served as an expert on the National Academy of Sciences committee on Managing Urban Stormwater Pollution, and as a U.S. Fulbright Senior Environmental Leadership Fellow at the Government of India’s Central Pollution Control Board. He is presently a member on a National Academy of Sciences committee on the federal Multi-Sector Industrial Stormwater General Permit. The committee is developing recommendations to submit to the Environmental Protection Agency early next year for a Proposed Rule to be issued in 2020.
The California Water Boards, and the Centre for Water Protection in Maryland have both honored him for his contributions to the advancement of U.S. storm water policy. At UCLA, he received the Outstanding Graduate Student Award, and is a life member of the UCLA Alumni Association.
Xavier holds a Doctorate in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from UCLA, and a Master of Science degree from Texas Christian University. He attended Loyola Law School.
Research Interests
His research interests are to study the progress of regulatory policy for water quality protection, its implementation, and effectiveness in the U.S. and California. Areas of focus include industrial storm water pollution control, eliminating barriers to the implementation of green infrastructure, better understanding of the effectiveness of storm water control measures implemented in California with public grants, and standardizing water quality monitoring and modeling methods in Southern California to inform local governments for surface water pollution control planning.
On an international level, he is interested in integrated water resources management, environmental protection strategies, and regulatory policy implementation in the Asia and Pacific region including India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia, and in contrasting them with the U.S.
His personal interest is to create opportunities for ESE and IOES students for internships and residencies at local, state, and federal agencies; and international environmental organizations in order for them to appreciate public service in protecting the environment, through the professional partnerships he forged during his years in government service.
Jean Michel Takuo
Research Interests
Bats and Bird ecology, I am also interested on zoonoses.
Current Research Project
I am actually collecting data on bats, rodent, shrew and bird ecology in central Africa (Cameroon, DRC and Republic of Congo), as well as biological samples collection (blood, swabs and tissue) for virus and other wildlife pathogens that can affect humans by the same time assist the laboratory on samples management, RNA and DNA extraction.
Brian Taylor
Brian Taylor’s research centers on transportation policy and planning – most of it conducted in close collaboration with his many exceptional students. His students have won dozens of local and national awards for their work, and today hold positions at the highest levels of planning analysis and practice. More of his students have won awards from the Council of University Transportation Centers for the best capstone project, thesis, or dissertation in transportation policy and planning than have the students of any other faculty member in North America.
Professor Taylor explores how society pays for transportation systems and how these systems in turn serve the needs of people who – because of low income, disability, location, or age – have lower levels of mobility. Topically, his research examines travel behavior, transportation finance, and politics & planning.
His research on travel behavior has examined (1) the effect of travel experience on cognitive mapping, (2) how travel patterns vary by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and income, (3) the social, economic, and spatial factors explaining public transit use, (4) the role of walking, waiting, and transferring on travel choices, (5) ways to cost-effectively increase public transit use, and (6) alternative ways to evaluate the effects of traffic congestion on people and firms.
A principal focus of his research is the politics of transportation finance, including (1) the history of freeway planning and finance, (2) emerging trends in pricing road use, (3) the equity of alternative forms of finance, (4) linking of subsidies to public transit performance, and (5) measuring equity in public transit finance. Related work has also examined the effect of political drivers on planning outcomes, such has how concerns over civil rights law, traffic congestion, terrorism, and climate change affect transportation policy and planning.
Prior to joining the UCLA faculty in 1994, Professor Taylor taught planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and before that he was a planner with Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area. The politics of planning practice informs both his research and teaching, which regularly includes Transportation and Land Use: Urban Form, Transportation Policy and Planning, and Transportation Economics, Finance, and Policy, and occasionally Transportation Geography, Travel Behavior Analysis, Comparative International Transportation Workshop, and courses in research design for planners.
Professor Taylor is currently an Associate Director of the University of California Transportation Center, Chair of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies Federal Transit Administration Transit Economic Requirements Model review committee, and a Fellow in the American Institute of Certified Planners.
Charles Taylor
Greg Spicer
Phil Spinks
Education
2004 – PhD – University of California, Davis – Ecology
1997- BS – University of California, Davis – Evolution and Ecology
Research
My research revolves around conservation genetics and systematics. Specifically, I am interested in applying molecular genetic techniques to problems in conservation biology, and also understanding processes that lead to and maintain patterns of genetic diversity at various levels from populations to deep phylogenetic history. My work combines laboratory and field studies to investigate phylogeography and ecology of the western pond turtle (Emys marmorata), and conservation phylogenetics and systematics of freshwater turtles.