Dam Nation

Dr. Bsumek is the Ellen Clark Temple Chair in Women’s History at the University of Texas at Austin. She has written on Native American history, environmental history/studies, the history of the built environment, and the history of the U.S. West. Her latest book, The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau (University of Texas Press, 2023) explores the social and environmental history of the area surrounding Glen Canyon on the Utah/Arizona border from the 1840s to the present.

Dr. Graham is a writer, historian, & landscape designer with a practice based in Los Angeles. Since 1999, he has been a trustee of Glen Canyon Institute, a Colorado River restoration group based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Mr. Kightlinger was the Chief Executive Officer and General Manager for The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California from 2006 to 2021. Currently, Mr. Kightlinger is the owner of Acequia Consulting, LLC working with clients providing strategic advice on Colorado River issues, natural resources, water, and energy issues.

Dr. Lappen is a postdoctoral researcher at Notre Dame. A historian and engineer, he studies how energy networks shape and are shaped by local landscapes and political institutions. His historical work is grounded in the American West, and examines how emergent energy systems have provided new mechanisms for contesting governance, ideology, identity, and public memory.

Mr. Leslie is a Los Angeles Times contributing opinion writer and the author of Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment. He is now writing a book about the last 25 years in the Klamath River basin.

Dr. Orona is a 2023-2025 UC President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Santa Cruz in the Department of History. Her research and teaching focus on Indigenous history and human rights, environmental studies, public humanities, and visual sovereignty. Orona is Hupa and an enrolled member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California.

Ms. Sahn is Editor in Chief of High Country News, a magazine about the West. She previously served as Executive Editor of Pacific Standard and as Editor of Orion magazine before that.

Dr. Taylor teaches environmental and western North American history in the History and Geography Departments at Simon Fraser University. His award-winning research addresses the salmon crisis, outdoor recreation, gentrification, and rural life. He is currently finishing a history of congressional conservation before World War II and a biography on the author of the Taylor Grazing Act.

Ms. Westford rejoined the San Diego County Water Authority in 2024, after serving for the previous 12 years as an executive policy advisor for Colorado River Programs at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. At the Water Authority, Westford reports to the general manager and is responsible for the Colorado River and the Metropolitan Water District Programs. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Westford served for 17 years at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in a variety of capacities and locations, including the California-Great Basin Region, the Lower Colorado Basin Region, and several stints in Washington, D.C.