
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1980 specializing in monetary economics and econometrics. He was formerly a professor of Economics at the University of Southern California and has held executive positions with McDonnell Douglas, FlightSafety International, and FlightSafety Boeing during a fifteen-year span in the aviation business. He also held a position with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors developing forecasting tools, and has advised banks, investors and financial institutions.
From 2000 to 2006, he was the Managing Principal of Deep Blue Economics, a consulting firm he founded. He has been the recipient of the Korda Fellowship, USC Outstanding Teacher, India Chamber of Commerce Jubilee Lecturer, and he is a Fulbright Scholar. He has published over 100 scholarly and popular articles on monetary economics, economic forecasting and analysis, labor economics, and industrial organization and he is the author of two books on monetary economics and exchange rates.

He has published over a dozen research articles in Journal of Forecasting, International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of International Money and Finance, etc. He also wrote op-ed articles in Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. He developed the City Human Capital Index, the Los Angeles City Employment Estimate, and wrote the quarterly US-China economic report. He has been cited in the local, national and overseas media frequently including Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Bloomberg, CBS Money Watch, Al Jazeera, U-T San Diego, LA Daily News, LA Daily Breeze, Straits Times, NBC, ABC, CNBC, CNN, and NPR, as well as various Chinese and Korean media. He was invited as a speaker for various events, including the annual Woo Greater China Business Conference, Cathay Bank economic outlook luncheons, and National Association for Business Economics.
He received his bachelor’s degree in finance from National Taiwan University in 1995 and was an analyst in Fubon Financial Holding in Taipei from 1997 to 2000. In 2006, he received his Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Washington where he was also an economics instructor and won two distinguished teaching awards. In 2006, he worked for the Frank Russell Investment Group for Treasury and corporate yields modeling and forecasting. From 2006 to 2011, he served as an assistant and an associate professor of economics at Winona State University where he taught courses including forecasting methods, managerial economics, international economics, and macroeconomics.

After serving as assistant and associate professor at Harvard University, Leamer joined the UCLA faculty in 1975 as professor of economics. In 1990 he moved across campus to UCLA Anderson and was appointed to the Chauncey J. Medberry Chair. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the Econometric Society. In 2014 he won the award for Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Economics, awarded annually by the American Antitrust Institute.
Leamer’s work has been impactful beyond the classroom and his academic research. As director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, business practitioners in every field value his opinions. For example, in his December 2000 forecast, the UCLA Anderson Forecast (http://www.uclaforecast.com/) stood virtually alone in predicting the 2001 recession. In a special release on September 12, 2001, the Forecast correctly analyzed the likely unimportance of 9/11 for the evolution of the recession. In June 2002, Leamer began warning about a momentum-driven overheated housing market that was sure to cause problems for the economy in the future. In August of 2007 at the annual Federal Reserve Jackson Hole Symposium, Leamer argued for special targeting of housing in a paper titled “Housing IS the Business Cycle.”
Leamer is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has been an occasional visiting scholar at the IMF and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He has served on the Councils of Economic Advisors or Governor Wilson, Governor Schwarzenegger and Mayor Garcetti. He has been on the Advisory Board of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In 2005-2006 he chaired a panel of the National Academy of Sciences on outsourcing and delivered the report to Commerce and to Congress.
He has published over 120 articles and five books and reminds those interested to hurry to Amazon.com to purchase his most recent books: either Macroeconomic Patterns and Stories, or The Craft of Economics. His research papers in econometrics have been collected in Sturdy Econometrics, published in the Edward Elgar Series of Economists of the 20th Century. His research in international economics and econometric methodology has been discussed in New Horizons in Economic Thought: Appraisals of Leading Economists.

After graduating from Swarthmore College in 2011 with a B.A. in economic (major) and psychology (minor), she worked as an analyst at Analysis Group in the San Francisco Bay Area. During her time in economic consulting, she worked with a team of economists and experts to provide litigation support and research for major national and international companies in industries ranging from manufacturing to information technology. After working in economic consulting, Leila joined Economic Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Working with prominent economists on issues of employment, education, and economic mobility, Leila conducted research supporting U.S. monetary policy, writing reports for both internal and external audiences.
Leila's research lies at the intersection of behavioral economics and public finance. Within these fields, she focuses on how and why individuals use or ignore information when making decisions and on the resulting implications for policy. Leila has also worked with local governments to design and implement policy evaluations and has published in the field of labor economics.

Prior to joining UCLA, Leo worked in management consulting at Cornerstone Research and Boston Consulting Group. At Cornerstone Research, he advised the U.S. government and corporations on antitrust litigation and economic disputes. At Boston Consulting Group, he advised clients in the consumer retail industry on revenue growth and supply chain optimization strategies.
From 2010 to 2016, Leo was an assistant professor of international economics at Johns Hopkins University. He also worked at the World Bank, where he was an advisor to the country director for Brazil.
Leo received his Ph.D. in economics from Brown University in 2010, specializing in urban and labor economics; his M.A. in international policy studies from Stanford University in 2002; and his B.A. in economics and international relations from Stanford University in 2002.

Dr. Hoek’s academic work explores the union of membrane technologies, nanomaterials and electrochemistry for a more sustainable future. He has also applied this knowledge as an entrepreneur having co-invented/founded several technology companies (e.g., NanoH2O, Water Planet, PolyCera, IntelliFlux) and as a consultant having advised various international, federal and California state agencies, municipalities, technology companies, investment funds, law firms and research funding agencies.
Dr. Hoek has worked on applications including drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment, ocean and brackish water desalination, municipal and industrial water reuse, oil & gas produced water treatment, oil spill remediation, salinity gradient power, biogas production, kidney dialysis and protein purification. He has over 130 peer-reviewed scientific publications, over 70 patents filed globally, is the co-Editor-in-Chief of The Encyclopedia of Membrane Science and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Nature journal npj Clean Water. Dr. Hoek has a Ph.D. from Yale University, M.S. from UCLA, B.S. from Penn State and completed UCLA Anderson’s Executive Management and Director Education & Certification Programs.

From 2010 – 2013, Jacobs served as an Assistant Director in the Executive Office of the President. Jacobs was the director of the National Climate Assessment, leading a team of 300 authors and more than a thousand contributors who wrote the Third NCA report. She also was the lead advisor on water science and policy, and climate adaptation, within the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Prior to her work in the White House, from 2006-2009 Jacobs was the Executive Director of the Arizona Water Institute, a consortium of the three state universities focused on water-related research, education and technology transfer in support of water supply sustainability. She has more than twenty years of experience as a water manager for the State of Arizona Department of Water Resources, including 14 years as director of the Tucson Active Management Area. Her research interests include water policy, connecting science and decision-making, stakeholder engagement, use of climate information for water management applications, climate change adaptation and drought planning.
Ms. Jacobs earned her M.L.A. in environmental planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She has served on nine National Research Council panels and was Chair of the NRC Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change and a member of the panel on America’s Climate Choices.



David’s combined experience as a lawyer, whose work has ranged from iconic water rights matters to returning billions of dollars to defrauded investors in equity receiverships, and as an executive, guiding strategy, staffing, solution-based pricing, and more, provides substantive value to the clients he serves. Whether routine or novel, his clients are confident that he will find a viable approach for anything that arises. In particular, David is known for his ability to find a path for resolving unique questions—where answers are not clear-cut—or sorting peculiar facts outside of established law.
Although water resources, firm management, and creditors’ rights may seem distinctly different, they do have one thing in common—scarce resources. There's not enough water for the environment, business, and population growth. A law firm has a finite supply of talent, time, and resources to be spread among many competing goods. And, by definition, no debtor-creditor problem ever arises where there is enough money. Each is familiar territory for David, where he is adept at dividing a limited pie among unlimited expectations.

She is the director of the UCLA Center for Corporate Environmental Performance. She was the President of the Alliance for Research in Corporate Sustainability (ARCS). An organization that serves as a vehicle for advancing rigorous academic research on corporate sustainability issues.
Her research interests are primarily in the areas of Business strategy and Corporate Sustainability. Magali Delmas has written more than 90 articles, book chapters and case studies on business and the natural environment. She is the recipient of the Academy of Management/Organization and the Natural Environment Distinguished Scholar Award.
She works on developing effective information strategies to promote conservation behavior and the development of green markets. Here is a short video of her recent work on green consumers.
Her current research includes the investigation of the barriers and incentives to the adoption of energy efficient solutions.
She is also engaged in refining current methodologies to measure and communicate firm’s and products’ environmental performance.

Previously, Peterman served a six-year term on the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), from 2013 to 2018. She led several CPUC clean-energy initiatives, including the adoption of the nation’s first electric utility energy storage mandate, approval of $965 million of utility investments in electric vehicle charging infrastructure, adoption of utility energy-efficiency goals, and the continued implementation of California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard.
Before her CPUC appointment, Peterman served on the California Energy Commission, where she was the lead commissioner for renewables, transportation, and natural gas. She also is a former board member of The Utility Reform Network, an organization that represents consumers before the CPUC and California Legislature.
She was appointed in 2019 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to chair the Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery, which played a critical role in developing recommendations that led to passage of legislation that holds utilities accountable for reducing wildfire risks from their equipment and encourages a financially stable electric industry.
Peterman holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley. She also earned a Master of Science and Master of Business Administration from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes scholar. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Howard University.
Peterman serves on the external advisory board for Sandia National Laboratories’ Energy and Homeland Security Portfolio. She has also served on the board of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, was a member of the California Broadband Council, and served as Chair of the California Plug-in Electric Vehicle Collaborative.

Most recently Alex ran Mercer’s Responsible Investment team in North America. In this role he regularly led environmental, social and governance (ESG) integration exercises with the boards and investment committees of institutional investors of all types and sizes while driving innovation in environmental and social risk management. Alex was a lead contributor to Mercer’s Investing in a Time of Climate Change research in 2015 and 2019 and (co)-led related consulting arrangements with institutional investors across North America with over $800B of portfolio assets.
Prior to joining Mercer, Alex was a Senior Vice President at Guy Carpenter where he founded and ran the firm's GC Micro Risk Solutions® division focused on designing and developing index-based micro(re)insurance programs for development banks, microfinance institutions and insurers. Additionally, he supported the firm's broader growth efforts advising public and private risk-bearing entities on a variety of issues with a focus on disaster risk management, energy liability and credit risk. In this capacity Alex co-led the Flood Insurance Risk Study, an in-depth year-long project for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) focused on researching the global capacity for catastrophic flood reinsurance, options for flood insurance privatization in the US and the NFIP's capital adequacy.
Alex is an honors graduate of the University of Puget Sound (BA) and is often quoted in financial industry press. He maintains his Series 7 and 63 securities licenses and has achieved Associate of Reinsurance, Associate of Insurance Services and Associate of Risk Management for Public Entities accreditations from The Institutes. He has also received recognition for his work across (re)insurance and investment markets: he was ranked as one of the top 20 most influential individual consultants globally in the Sustainable and Responsible Investing category by the Independent Research in Responsible Investment (IRRI) Survey 2017; he was designated a Rising Star by Reactions magazine in 2011 and; he was designated a Power Broker® by Risk & Insurance magazine also in 2011.

Lauren is a business leader focused on the relationship between innovation and environmental sustainability. With 20 years consulting experience, Lauren has led a variety of initiatives addressing business and digital transformation, strategic planning, and change management that yield environmental and operational benefit.
Lauren has earned her MBA from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Arts degree in environmental science from Bucknell University. She is a certified Change Management Advanced Practitioner through Georgetown University and PMP Certified.

She holds a Ph.D. in Finance from Maastricht University (The Netherlands) and has visited Toulouse School of Economics (France), Rotman School of Management in Toronto (Canada), and 427 Climate Solutions in Berkeley, California (United States) during the 4-year program. Moreover, she has taught Corporate Finance, Financial Economics, and Business Ethics at the graduate/undergraduate level.