Dr. Christopher Koliba appointed Associate Director for VT EPSCoR

Dr. Christopher Koliba has been appointed Associate Director for the Vermont Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (VT EPSCoR) by the Vermont Technology Council, in consultation with the University of Vermont (UVM) Vice President's Office for Research and VT EPSCoR.

Dr. Koliba has an outstanding career of research, teaching and leadership. He joined the University of Vermont in 1999 where he currently serves as Full Professor in the Community Development and Applied Economics Department in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Dr. Koliba was recently appointed the inaugural position as President's Fellow for Engagement to support UVM's newly created Office of Engagement. He also serves as the Director of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) Program, the Co-Director of the Social Ecological Gaming and Simulation (SEGS) Lab (www.uvm.edu/~segs) and a Faculty Fellow at the UVM Gund Institute for Environment. He holds a Ph.D. and an MPA from Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. His research interests include environmental governance, governance networks, community resilience, network performance and accountability, with applications to water quality, food systems, energy systems, emergency and disaster response, and sustainable transportation systems. He has published two books relating to network governance and over 80 academic papers and book chapters.

Within VT EPSCoR he has served as a leader for the Social Systems Group since 2011 and played an instrumental role in the development of the current five-year award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) focused on Lake Champlain Basin Resilience to Extreme Events (BREE) for which he continues to provide leadership of the social systems team. Dr. Koliba has represented VT EPSCoR at the National Science Foundation to report directly on progress for the Adaptation to Climate Change in the Lake Champlain Basin: New Understanding through Complex Systems (RACC) and Basin Resilience to Extreme Events (BREE) RII Track-1 awards; he has also presented numerous RACC and BREE related papers and talks at national and international venues. He serves as the lead for the BREE Policy and Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC), which hosts bi-annual meetings for policy makers, decision makers, researchers, federal agency representatives, town and local officials from around the state and region for discussions related to the Lake Champlain Basin.

Dr. Arne Bomblies, VT State EPSCoR Director, enthusiastically welcomes Dr. Koliba to his new position. “Dr. Koliba is a highly respected social scientist nationally, at UVM, across Vermont and within VT EPSCoR. We are very fortunate that he has accepted this position. He is a gifted leader and mentor to our faculty, graduate students and postdocs. We look forward to his expanding role within VT EPSCoR and the benefits it will bring.”

Please join in welcoming Dr. Koliba as the Associate Project Director of VT EPSCoR.