Speaker Profiles

(Listed in alphabetical order)

Dave Hughes
David Hughes is a geologist with 35 years experience studying the energy resources of Canada for the Geological Survey of Canada and the private sector. He developed Canada's National Coal Inventory, which is a digital knowledge base on coal used to determine the availability and environmental constraints to development of coal resources for conventional and non-conventional uses, including coalbed methane production and the sequestration of CO₂. He is also Team Leader for Unconventional Gas for the Canadian Gas Potential Committee, an organization which publishes Canada's most authoritative assessments of National natural gas potential.

David's evolving analysis of global and North American energy issues has been presented across Canada, the United States and internationally to Federal, Provincial, State and Municipal governments and agencies, professional and policy associations and forums, and many other public- and private-sector groups. Aspects of his analysis have also been taken up by the popular press and trade journals including the Toronto Star, Canadian Business Magazine, the Canadian Press wire service and innumerable internet sites.

Brian Luckman
Brian Luckman has taught Geography at the University of Western Ontario since 1971. For the last 40 years he has carried out studies of geomorphology, glacier fluctuations, dendrochronology and environmental change in the Canadian Cordillera, principally in Jasper and Banff National Parks and, latterly, in the Yukon. He heads a major interdisciplinary project with colleagues from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico and the United States reconstructing climate and hydrological variability in the American Cordillera using tree-rings. These studies address the impacts of climate change on alpine environments and the human communities within them.

Andrew Miall
Andrew D. Miall has been on faculty at University of Toronto since 1979 and holds the Gordon Stollery Chair in Basin Analysis and Petroleum Geology. He received a Ph.D. in sedimentology from University of Ottawa in 1969 and was awarded the D.Sc. from the University of London in 1992. Andrew was a Research Scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada in Calgary 1972-1979, working on geology of the Canadian Arctic Islands. He is the author of "Principles of Sedimentary Basin Analysis," now in its 3rd edition. He was elected Fellow of Royal Society of Canada in 1995 and is currently President of the Academy of Science.

William Ruddiman
William F. Ruddiman is emeritus professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. He received a Ph.D in marine geology from Columbia University in 1969 and worked at Lamont-Doherty Observatory from 1976 to 1991, where he was a Doherty Senior Research Scientist and Associate Director (1980-1984). He was a member of the Environmental Sciences Department at Virginia from 1991-2001 and Chair from 1993-1996. He is author of Earth's Climate, now in 2nd edition. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union.

Nat Rutter
Nat has spent most of his career working on scientific problems concerning the Quaternary Period, the last 2.6 million years of Earth history. After graduating with his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, he joined the Geological Survey of Canada in Calgary, spending most of his time investigating the glacial history and climate change of Western Canada. After a short stint as Environmental Advisor with the National Energy Board in Ottawa, he returned to the University of Alberta as Professor and then as Chairman of the Department of Geology. He and his graduate students continued climate change research not only in Canada but also in China, Siberia, Europe, Africa and South America. He is currently University Professor Emeritus of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

He has been a member of many scientific committees and organizations, including President of the International Union for Quaternary Research. He was one of the founding members of the international program on Past Global Change. Nat is the founder and first editor-in-chief of the scientific periodical Quaternary International.

His many honours include Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada,Officer of the Order of Canada, Honourary Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Honourary Doctor of Science degrees. He has distinguished career awards from the Geological Asssociation of Canada, The Geological Society of America and the Canadian Quaternary Association.