MADISON – A leading expert in international environmental health and economic development will lecture on the eve of Earth Day at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Kirk Smith, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, will speak on "Energy and World Development: Challenges for Health and Climate," at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 21, in 1610 Engineering Hall, 1410 Engineering Drive. His lecture is free and open to the public.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences and contributor to the reports of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Smith has studied health effects and climate change due to air pollution from biomass fuels in countries as widespread as China, India, Nepal, and Guatemala.
He serves on the advisory boards of national and international initiatives including the Global Action Plan for Pneumonia, the Global Energy Assessment, and the World Health Organization's Air Quality Guidelines.
Smith's talk is part of the Roy F. Weston Distinguished Global Sustainability Lecture Series at UW-Madison. Weston, an alumnus of the university, founded Weston Solutions, Inc., an international environmental and redevelopment firm.
The Weston lectures are sponsored by the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (part of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies) and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UW-Madison.
For more information, contact Sarah Witmer, (920) 253-5061, switmer@wisc.edu.