Samuel Boudreau
News Editor
After a year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Great Decisions of Wayne County lecture series returns to The College of Wooster. The lecture series’ theme this year is “Global Sustainable Development.”
Executive Director of the lecture series and professor of sociology and anthropology, Tom Tierney, hopes students take away “an appreciation of new possibilities about sustainable development,” he said, “hopefully learning something they have not thought about.”
“Even students who are committed to environmental sustainability will come away with new knowledge and new insights,” added Tierney. Lucas Stengl ’22, Alice Markey ’23, Emmy Todd ’22, Carrie Buckwalter ’24 and Megan Tuennerman ’22 helped develop this year’s discussion topic. Vijay Vaitheswarm, Colin Mangham and Kyle Dreyfuss will serve as the speakers for this year’s lecture series.
According to a press release from Tierney, “Vaitheeswaran is Global Energy & Climate Innovation Editor of The Economist, and an award-winning author who has written several books on energy, including ‘Need, Speed and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World’s Most Wicked Problems’ (2012) and ‘Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution will Transform an Industry, Change Our lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet’ (2015). Vaitheeswaran is a Life Member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, and a sustainability and innovation advisor to the World Economic Forum at Davos. He’s been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy and The Financial Times, and has appeared in numerous media outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg, MSNBC, BBC and NPR. He has addressed groups ranging from the U.S. National Governors Association and the United Nations General Assembly to TED and Aspen Ideas conference.”
“Mangham is a leading international expert on biomimicry, which is a design discipline that seeks sustainable solutions to man-made problems by emulating natural patterns in the development of engineering, architecture and design strategies. He is the Founder of Biomimicry LA, Director of Net Zero Accelerator, and Co-founder of Morpho Energy. He formerly served as Chief Marketing Officer of the Biomimicry Institute and Biomimicry 3.8, the world’s leading biological intelligence consultancy agency. Over the course of his career he has used his expertise in biomimicry to help dozens of global brands and hundreds of entrepreneurs to succeed in an environmentally sustainable manner. He has also been a Visiting Faculty Member at Reutlingen University (Germany), a TEDx speaker, and has been featured on CNN International’s ‘Going Green’ series.”
“Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells is Chief Executive Officer of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. As CEO, Ms. Dreyfuss-Wells oversees one of the largest clean-water agencies in Ohio, which provides sanitary and stormwater management services to Cleveland and 61 suburban communities in Northeast Ohio. She also manages a multi-billion-dollar 25-year Project Clean Lake program, and a regional wet-weather strategy for the health of Lake Erie. Before becoming CEO, she coordinated the District’s watershed management, including the Regional Stormwater Management Program and the District’s Green Infrastructure Policy. She is past chair of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) Stormwater Management Committee and the One Water Council of the US Water Alliance. She serves on the NACWA Board and chairs the District One Natural Resources Assistance Council for the Ohio Public Works Commission’s Clean Ohio Conservation Program.”
Vaitheeswaran will speak on Wednesday, March 2, 7:30 p.m. Mangham will speak on Tuesday, March 8, 7:30 p.m. and Dreyfus-Wells will speak on Thursday, March 31, 7:30 p.m. All lectures will take place in Gault Recital Hall in Scheide Music Center.