Speakers

Josué Medellín-Azuara is an Acting Associate Professor at UC Merced, and an Associate Director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center. He also serves as an Adjunct Research Fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center, and as a managing partner for Pacific Agroecology and Economics, LLC.  His professional experience includes project and environmental management positions and consulting for industry and non-governmental organizations such as the Natural Heritage Institute, the Stockholm Environment Institute, El Colegio de México, the Catholic University of Chile, and the World Bank. His research is focused on water supply and agricultural production considering climate extremes, water quality, and food-water-energy system interactions. He obtained his Ph.D. from UC Davis.

Lessons Learned for Water Management in California under Climate Extremes

California has successfully weathered past droughts and floods with the benefit of learning from these past extreme events. This seminar provides an overview of California’s water resources for agriculture, cities and the environment with a retrospect analysis of how these past extremes have contributed to contemporary water management. While California’s extreme events need not to be economically catastrophic, these always bring impacts and challenges to some sectors like small rural communities and native ecosystems. Opportunities for innovation in water use and management in California and other semi-arid regions will be discussed. 

Intuitive Surgical was founded 24 years ago as a spinoff from SRI in Menlo Park, CA to create innovative, robotic-assisted systems that help empower doctors and hospitals to make surgery less invasive than an open approach. With more than 43,000 da Vinci trained surgeons using 5000 systems in 66 countries, over 5 million patients have been treated using the technology to-date.  Jonathan will discuss Intuitive Surgical’s history and how it creates value for patients, surgeons and healthcare systems worldwide.  He will highlight areas of growth for surgical robotics in general, with a deeper dive into areas that could benefit from improvement.

Jonathan Sorger is the vice president of research at Intuitive Surgical, where he leads a group whose main focus is to address unmet clinical needs through the use of robotic technologies.  He attended Leland High School in San Jose, continued on to study bioengineering at UC San Diego and received the PhD and MBA degrees from Johns Hopkins University with a focus on biomedical engineering and magnetic resonance imaging applied to cardiac pathologies. 

Dr. Andrew Gunther will review the basic physical principles and observations that have led every scientific academy in the world to conclude that human emissions of greenhouse gasses are altering the climate. He will discuss what the expected significant climatic changes mean for the country in general and the Bay Area in particular. More information about Dr. Gunther is available at http://www.andrewgunther.com/.

Carl Guardino, one of Silicon Valley’s most distinguished business and community leaders, is the President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a public policy trade association that represents more than 350 of Silicon Valley’s most respected employers.  IIn February 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Guardino to a four-year term on the California Transportation Commission. He was reappointed twice by Governor Jerry Brown, and in 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed him to his fourth consecutive four-year term.  In 2000, the San Jose Mercury News named Guardino one of the “Five Most Powerful” people in Silicon Valley, in a once-per-decade “Power Study.” He received similar recognition in 2010. Guardino has been the chief executive of the Leadership Group since January 1997. He previously served as vice president of the organization between 1991 and 1995. He also held an executive position in governmental affairs with Hewlett-Packard and he spent six years on the staff of Central Valley Assemblyman Rusty Areias, the last three as his chief assistant.

Guardino was born and raised in San Jose and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from San Jose State University, where he is a Distinguished Alumnus. He is a member of Junior Achievement’s “Silicon Valley Business Hall of Fame” and the recipient of the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from City Year, and was the second recipient of the “American Public Transit Association’s Business Executive of the Year.”  Carl is married to Leslee Guardino. In their spare time, they compete in marathons, triathlons and duathlons. They have two daughters, Jessica and Siena, and one son, Jake.

We know GPS as a way to find our way around the world.  It was created in 1972 and is still valid today.  Check out the movie “The Lonely Halls Meeting “ on Amazon to meet the team that created GPS.  Today, GPS affects so many aspects of our lives.  One aspect is timing to keep the internet working and financial transaction tagged and your cell phone operating.  Another is positioning used in agriculture, air and ground transportation and in operations such as dredging and construction. GPS makes multiple activities of human beings more productive and access is free.

Gaylord Green, a GPS founder, will hope to give you an understanding of how GPS works and its importance in our lives.  He will cover some of the interesting stories in developing  the system and how the user capability has improved.