Cohon

Jared Cohon, board chair for the Center for Sustainable Shale Development and president emeritus of Carnegie Mellon University, will share insight into incorporating  diverse, impassioned opinions to frame effective policy in his talk, “Working Together on Shale Gas Policy and Practice,” Tuesday, April 15, at 4:30 p.m., in 155 Olin Hall.           

In Pennsylvania’s booming shale gas industry, recent efforts have brought industrial and environmental interests together. Last summer, the Shale Gas Roundtable, co-chaired by Cohon, released a report with suggestions for improving oil and gas development in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus and Utica shale formations.

Following the report’s release, Cohon said: “Early in our deliberations, the roundtable members were able to agree on a common-sense framework for ‘getting it right’ that includes a strong regulatory system that adequately protects the environment and our local communities; the development and widespread industry use of best management practices and performance standards; substantial investments in technological and operational innovation to minimize impacts; and balanced research to support the continual improvement of regulations, standards and technology.”

As for chairing the Center for Sustainable Shale Development, Cohon said it provides a “useful lens through which to view the state of development of shale gas in the region, as well as lessons for working together.”

A professor of civil and environmental engineering and of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, Cohon served as the university’s president from 1997 to 2013. At Yale, he served as a dean of forestry and environmental science and spent his early career on the Johns Hopkins University faculty. He received his Ph.D. in civil engineering from MIT.

Cohon was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2012.

The talk is sponsored by Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future Outside Voices Speaker Series, Cornell’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.