The Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) announced Wednesday, April 14, that Lucas Gregory, Ph.D., assistant director of the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI), was elected to serve on the board of directors. He will serve a 3-year term on the board of directors starting July 1, 2021.
“It is an honor to be selected as a board member for UCOWR,” Gregory said. “It is a great opportunity to expand collaboration with folks from other institutions.”
The board of directors provides vision and policy guidance to UCOWR in its mission to support water resources research, education, and outreach nationwide. UCOWR was founded in 1964. It is a consortium of academic institutions, including the federally mandated state water resources institutions like TWRI.
To Gregory, one of UCOWR’s strengths is its facilitation of networking and collaboration across the water resource management field.
“It provides the opportunity to build collaborations and for members to know one another's expertise for future project proposals,” Gregory said. “For example, both the Ogallala Coordinated Agriculture Project and the Rio Grande Agriculture and Food Research Initiative project were born out of collaborations with other member institutions within UCOWR, and those are just a couple examples.”
Both projects are innovative, multi-state and multi-institution efforts. They address wide-reaching water quality and quantity issues that impact millions of Americans along the Ogallala Aquifer and the Rio Grande, respectively.
Gregory joins a long history of Texas A&M AgriLife personnel who have served as UCOWR board members and presidents. These have included current TWRI Director, John Tracy, Ph.D.; past Texas A&M Vice Chancellor, Office of Federal Regulations, Ron Lacewell, Ph.D.; past TWRI Associate Director, Kevin Wagner, Ph.D.; and past Director of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso, Ari Michelson, Ph.D.
