WEST 2024 Panelists

James Brown is a water, sanitation, and public health engineering expert, with more than ten years’ experience leading humanitarian and development projects across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. His work has involved the set-up of community health centres in Sierra Leone with Oxfam during the Ebola outbreak, coordinating contingency planning ahead of the Mosul offensive in Iraq with the Global WASH Cluster, and designing water supply and sanitation programs in South Sudan, Myanmar, Liberia, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria, and Lebanon with Oxfam, GOAL, and NRC. Prior to his work in the humanitarian sector, James co-founded Red Button Design – a social enterprise in the UK developing appropriate technology solutions for safe water access in rural communities. James specializes in bringing a diverse set of perspectives, from technical engineering to user-centred design, data science and business strategy, to the design of innovative, effective humanitarian programmes.

Lucas King is from settler ancestry from Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is the Director of the Territorial Planning Unit for Grand Council Treaty 3. He also sits on the National Board of Directors with the Canadian Water Resources Association, and is a Co-Chair on the Indigenous Relations Committee. Lucas feels fortunate to have spent his summers at Lake of the Woods – building what he would later learn to be a strong relationship with the water and learning through being outdoors. Lucas completed his BSc in Environmental Science at Mount Royal University and his MSc in Water Resources Engineering at the University of Manitoba. He has been working with the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty 3 since 2016 and focuses on Governance. Lucas is passionate about what it means to be good treaty partners, and bringing knowledge systems together for environmental sustainability in the face of climate and water crises across Canada and internationally.

Sophie Michaelsen is the drought coordinator for the Thompson Okanagan’s Water Resources Team. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Resource Science from Thompson Rivers University. Prior to her time with Water Resources, Sophie worked in water stewardship in both the Kootenay Boundary and Thompson Okanagan.

Deborah Curran is a Professor at the University of Victoria in the Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies (Faculty of Social Sciences), and the Executive Director of the Environmental Law Centre where she works with students on environmental law projects for community and Indigenous organizations across British Columbia, Canada. Deborah’s work is in the areas of land and water law, with a particular focus on environmental protection and collaborative governance, municipal sustainability, healthy foodscapes, and how Indigenous law is shaping colonial law. Deborah has spent the past 20 years working with local governments on sustainable communities and green bylaws, and is an advisor to several of the collaborative watershed governance table negotiations ongoing in BC.

Jake Li, a Green Infrastructure Engineer, applies his civil engineering and stormwater management expertise to projects across Vancouver and Okanagan campuses. With a Master’s in Water Resources Engineering from the University of Alberta and 15 years of experience in both public sectors and consulting firms, Jake specializes in capital infrastructure planning, design, construction management, and project management. Currently, he leads the update of the Integrated Rainwater Management Plan for the UBC Vancouver Point Grey campus.

Nick Mead-Fox is a Senior Engineer with the Green Infrastructure (GI) Implementation Branch at the City of Vancouver. He is also the founder and co-chair of the BCWWA Green Infrastructure Community of Practice, which aims to share GI best practices with professionals around the province and accelerate Green Infrastructure implementation through standardization, modelling, and advocacy. He has led the effort to create standards for GI implementation on City Streets in Vancouver and continues to work towards dismantling barriers that limit the extent of GI implementation in the City.