Nathaniel Kenneth Newlands

Biography

Dr. Nathaniel Kenneth Newlands was born in Toronto, Canada. He has lived in North America, Europe and Africa, receiving an education within both private and public schools. He is a strong lateral learner and systems thinker with both broad and in-depth multi-disciplinary learning and experience. He completed a B.Sc. in mathematics and physics, a M.Sc. in astrophysics, and a Ph.D. in resource management and environmental studies, with post-doctoral training at the Institute of Applied Mathematics (IAM) and the Pacific Institute of the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) based at University of British Columbia (UBC) in mathematical ecology.  He has worked as a visiting scientist with the Edgerton Research Laboratory (Boston, MA), as a scientific consultant and has taught/lectured at UBC in biology, operations research/mathematical programming and Environmental Statistics. Since 2004, he has worked as a research scientist in environmental health within the Science and Technology Branch, Government of Canada (AAFC). He is an associate faculty member in geography with the University of Victoria (UVic), Canada.

Nathaniel is a member of the American Statistical Association (ASA), The Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) and The International Environmetrics Society (TIES), and an editor (Associate and Review) for the Frontiers Environmental Science (Interdisciplinary Climate Change) Journal, including a regular reviewer for grant programs and is regularly solicited as a journal reviewer, with reviews conducted for over 40 different journals spanning a broad range of scientific disciplines. He is also a member of Canada's Federal Bioenergy and Inter-departmental Open Science/Open Government Working Groups, a Advisory Board/Steering Committee Member for Canada's National Agricultural Information Service (NAIS).

Nathaniel has received professional training in ethics, leading scientific teams, people, project and information management, serving in a variety of different roles (i.e., local group President, Executive Board Member and Regional Delegate) for the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) engaged in promoting safe and healthy workplaces, ethics, public-good science and its integrity.

He has served on a wide range of advisory boards, expert panels and scientific committees, including:  The National Science and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) Long-Range Planning Initiative Advisory Board for the Development of a Canadian Statistical Institute and as an invited expert reviewer on behalf of the Government of Canada of the United Nations - International Panel on Climate Change (UN-IPCC) 5th Assessment Reports (Working Group I - Climate Change 2013: The Physical Basis and Working Group II - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability). He also has served in an advisory role in Canada's international involvement in the OECD Joint Working Party on Agriculture and the Environment in Modeling Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture, and as an international Panel Member for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA).
He is a member of the Bridge Collaboration Sustainable Food Production (International) Working Group (The Nature Conservancy, PATH, International Food Policy Research Institute, and Duke University).

In addition to authoring his first book on ecosystems, he has authored 67 original peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters, conference proceedings and numerous governmental and non-governmental technical reports. His innovation has been disseminated widely in a variety of media: books, journals, technical report series, newsletters and popular articles, including online communications, publicly available decision-support tools, open databases. He has organized technical workshops and conference symposium, presented more than 70 contributed/invited/keynote talks at major international conferences, workshops, and broader public events.

He has acted as a principal investigator/team leader, collaborator and participant in a broad array of interdisciplinary, collaborative research and development projects of varying size and complexity within the water-energy-food nexus that have achieved high-quality, high impact public-good outcomes. He has trained a large number of undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral fellows who are now working with Google as innovators, academics/professors, business leads in major banking and financial companies, computer software developers and environmental engineers. He has supervised a broad set of technicians. He has had a leading role in developing and enhancing  a suite of Canadian operational decision-support tools (local, regional to national-scale) in greenhouse gas emission assessment, a National Database of Historical Climate for Canada and National Interpolated Climate Grid for Canada, Integrated Canadian Crop Yield Forecaster (ICCYF) Decision-Support Tool for agricultural yield and production forecasting, An Open Sensor Web Platform for Agricultural Sensing and Monitoring, National agri-environmental indicators (e.g., Enhanced National Indicator of Risk due to Water Contamination, IROWC), and Canada's Biomass Inventory Mapping and Assessment Tool (BIMAT) providing sustainable biomass/bioenergy inventory and management support.

Education

Postdoc, Mathematical Ecology (UBC, Vancouver, Canada)
Ph.D. Resource Mgmt. and Environmental Studies (UBC, Canada)
M.Sc. Astrophysics (Univ. Calgary, Canada)
B.Sc. (Hon.) Mathematics and Physics (Univ. Guelph, Canada)

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

• Interdisciplinary Science, Systems Science/Ecosystems, Operations Research
• Complex Adaptive Systems, Data Science, Integrated Risk Analysis,
• Predictive Analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Machine-Learning
• Food Security/Insecurity, Renewable Resources, Industrial Ecology, Sustainability,
• Environmetrics, Sustainability Metrics, Footprint Analysis, Life-Cycle Assessment
• Downscaling/Upscaling of Ecological Processes

Personal Interests

PERSONAL INTERESTS AND HOBBIES
• Nature (Hiking, Kayaking/Sailing)
• Music (Jazz Trumpet, Classical Piano, Tahitian To’ere Drumming
• World Music, Theatre and Dance, Astronomy

Websites

• Associate Faculty - University of Victoria(UVic Geography)

• Building and Delivering Real-World, Integrated Sustainability Solutions: Insights, Methods and Case-Study Applications

• Companion workshop/shortcourse for sustainability professionals

• Frontiers

• Keynote international address

• Publons

• ResearchGate

Books

Articles

News