The Water Dissensus – A Water Alternatives Forum

"How could anything non-controversial be of intellectual interest to grown-ups?" (Edward Abbey) This Forum is intended to provide space for critical debates and discussions about water issues. Existing dissensus, or antagonistic values and points of view, can be turned into a learning opportunity for the benefit of all and give way to reasoned debates that have the potential both to further understanding of complex water issues and to generate new ideas.

Linda Mendez-Barrientos

Linda Estelí Mendez-Barrientos is an Assistant Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, where she leads the Environmental Policy & Justice Research Group (epjr), which is dedicated to understanding how inequality and power asymmetries shape institutional change processes and environmental justice. Linda is also the founder of s2e-Science to Empower, an environmental justice initiative that facilitates applied research to support the defense of human and nature rights. She is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (2016-2021), NSF Integrative Graduate Education & Research Traineeship (2015-2017), and European Commission Agris Mundus Scholarship (2008-2010). Born and raised in Nicaragua, she earned a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of California Davis, and holds two master’s degrees, one on Water Management from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and the other on Tropical Agrarian Systems from Montpellier SupAgro in France.