Aaron Burman
Aaron Burman is a professional engineer and head of the technical team at Resource Recycling Systems, based in Ann Arbor, MI. RRS is a consulting company dedicated to providing solutions for a waste free future. Aaron works with a wide variety of clients including communities, universities and companies to develop successful programs to increase diversion and ensure long-term supply of recycled materials. He has expertise ranging from program implementation to large-scale green supply chain optimization studies. He also recently completed a study on the life cycle benefits of organics management options. In addition to research projects, he gets involved in day-to-day operations working with collection crews to improve route efficiency, and overseeing deployment of new programs. He has also spoken extensively on recycling and waste issues, including carbon emissions and sustainable operations.
Robert Burns, PhD
Dr. Burns currently serves as the Assistant Dean for Agriculture, Natural Resources & Resource Development and Professor of Biosystems Engineering with the University of Tennessee. As Assistant Dean he oversees the Extension programs of seven academic departments and two Centers within the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. Robert also serves as the state Agricultural and Natural Resources (ANR) Extension Program Leader and is responsible for the ANR Extension programs offered through 95 county Extension offices across Tennessee. Prior to being named as Assistant Dean, Robert served as a Professor of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University, and as Director of the Iowa State University Agricultural Waste Management Team. Under Robert’s leadership, this team conducted applied research and extension programming focused on animal manure and agricultural waste management that included work on air emissions monitoring and mitigation, manure and nutrient management and anaerobic digestion. Dr. Burns has given over 500 professional presentations and published over 200 technical publications dealing with manure and air quality management. Prior to working at Iowa State University, Robert served as an Extension Specialist at the University of Tennessee for nine years, working on environmental management issues. Dr. Burns holds a BS in Agricultural Engineering, MS in Environmental Engineering, and PhD in Civil Engineering from The University of Tennessee and is a registered professional engineer. Robert has 20 years of experience in environmental and agricultural engineering that includes extensive international work experience in both developed and developing counties including, Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, England, Germany, Netherlands, Romania, Republic of Korea, Serbia and Zambia.
David R. Carta, PhD
Dr. David Carta is a founder and current CEO of Telaeris, Inc. His business expertise focuses on the areas of RFID and identification technologies, mobility solutions, and database driven web systems. David is a high energy individual who loves to use out of the box thinking to solve problems. He enjoys diving into technical details as well as working on the development of businesses through organization, marketing and sales. He has headed deployments of identification systems for both commercial and government clients.
John Lively
John Lively is Director of Environment and Material Science at Preserve where he is responsible for material development and sustainability efforts. He aims to bring the approaches of industrial ecology to the material sourcing and production decisions of household products such as toothbrushes, plates and food storage containers. In addition, he has helped lead the development of innovative waste recollection programs such as Preserve’s Gimme 5 program. Having been with Preserve for 12 years, John partnered with the Preserve founder to grow the company from the start-up stage, through several rounds of funding, to profitable operations and a leading role in innovative sustainable consumer products. John Lively graduated from Harvard University where he studied environmental science and public policy.
Shihwu Sung, PhD
Dr. Sung is Professor and Division Head for the Environmental Engineering and Water Resource department within the Department of Civil & Construction Engineering at Iowa State University. His research focuses on sustainable environmental biotechnology development, with a recent emphasis on valuable by-product recovery from industrial, agricultural, and municipal liquid and solid wastes using
newly developed high-rate anaerobic waste treatment technologies. By-products recovered include methane, hydrogen, biodiesel, alcohols, pathogen-free high nutrient biosolids, organic acids, etc. From 2008 to present, Dr. Sung has consulted on Asian bioenergy projects for the World Bank Clean Development Mechanism. He is a Fulbright Scholarship recipient, and since 2007 has acted as Associate Editor and Editorial Board member for the ASCE Journal of Energy Engineering.
