Faculty Spotlight for September 2008
Gregory E. van der Vink has been a visiting faculty member in the Department of Geosciences since 1991, teaching courses in Environmental Decision Making and Investigating Natural Hazards. Currently, he is the faculty advisor for the Ghana Project being undertaken by Princeton University's chapter of Engineers Without Borders.
Van der Vink was named Princeton's 250th Anniversary Professor for Distinguished Teaching in 2000-01 and was awarded the Engineering Council's Excellence in Teaching Award in 2004. He received his Ph.D. in Geosciences from Princeton University, has been a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, a Congressional Science Fellow, and an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations.
As the President and CEO of Terrametrics llc, van der Vink’s area of specialization is on predicting potential human responses to environmental change that impact poverty-reduction efforts and that are precursors for conflict. Thus, Terrametrics is a firm specializing in poverty reduction, conflict mitigation, and environmentally-sustainable economic growth in the developing world. The company is also developing a solar salt facility in Ghana that will eliminate over 1,000,000 incidences per year of Iodine Deficiency Disorder in Africa and the associated mental impairment among infants and children.