John Fleck

John Fleck is Professor of Practice in Water Policy and Governance and Director of the University of New Mexico Water Resources Program. Much of his career was spent in journalism, focused since the 1980s on the interface between science and political and policy processes, with special emphasis on climate and water in the southwestern United States. He was the Water Resource program’s writer-in-residence for three years before transitioning to academia full time in 2016. In the field of water resources, his primary interest is in nurturing the collaborative water governance needed to adapt to scarcity in the southwestern United States as populations grow while climate change reduces water supplies. That goal animates the Water Resources Program, where he and his colleagues work with graduate students who will become the region’s future water managers. In both the Water Resources Program and the Department of Economics, he also works on translational activities – helping make the technical work done in academia of maximum benefit to political and policy processes.