SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - In honor of her "ongoing efforts to reform water usage habits on farms," Scientific American has named Sandra Postel, a 1978 graduate of Wittenberg University, as one of its top 50 leaders in agricultural research. Profiles of the award-winners will appear in the magazine's December 2002 issue, which hits newsstands on Nov. 18.
A leading authority on global freshwater issues, Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Mass., has written extensively on international water issues and strategies for such publications as Science, Natural History, Technology Review, Environmental Science and Technology, International Wildlife and Water International.
A native of Franklin Square, N.Y., she has also written more than 20 op-ed features that have appeared in more than 30 newspapers in the United States and abroad, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and she has served as a commentator on CNN's Futurewatch. In 1993, her book titled Last Oasis was chosen by CHOICE magazine as one of the outstanding academic books of that year.
Postel, who is a senior fellow with the Worldwatch Institute and a visiting senior lecturer at Mount Holyoke College, previously served as an adviser to the Environmental Media Association, the Environmental Leadership Program and the Global 2000 program founded by President Jimmy Carter. In 1995, she was named a Pew Fellow in Conservation and the Environment.
A double major in geology and political science at Wittenberg, Postel earned her M.S. from Duke University in 1980. In February 1999, she returned to her alma mater to speak as part of the Wittenberg Series' IBM Endowed Lecture in the Sciences.
