2024 Keynote Speakers

Alicia Wilson, Professor, Hydrogeology, School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina. 2023 Darcy Lecturer

Biography: Alicia Wilson is a professor of hydrogeology in the School of the School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment at the University of South Carolina. She specializes in coastal hydrogeology, with a particular focus on coastal ecohydrology and submarine groundwater exchange. A fellow of the Geological Society of America, Wilson has served as the chair the GSA Hydrogeology Division and the Director of the School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment. She is a recipient of the University of South Carolina’s Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award. Wilson holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University, an MS from Stanford University, and a BA from Dartmouth College. She held a National Research Council Postdoctoral Research fellowship at the USGS in Reston, VA, and held a postdoc at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Phil Rigdon, Department of Natural Resources Superintendent, Yakama Nation, Toppenish, Washington.

Biography: Phil Rigdon is an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation and grew up on the Yakama Reservation in Southcentral Washington State. Mr. Rigdon has been the Superintendent of Yakama Nation’s Natural Resources Department since May 2005 and has worked for the Yakama Nation since June 1989.  

In his career, Mr. Rigdon has overseen the Yakama Nation’s participation in a regional water rights adjudication, droughts, and litigation over the impacts of groundwater extraction on surface water. After years of conflict, Mr. Rigdon helped find a pathway to cooperation and collaboration in the Yakima River Basin. He continues to participate in collaborative water resource management at a local, regional, and national level.

Mr. Rigdon represents the Yakama Nation on the Intertribal Timber Council, Yakima Basin Integrated Plan Executive Committee, the Washington State’s Columbia River Policy Advisory Group, Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative, the University of Washington Ecolab and the Hanford Natural Resource Trustee Council.

Mr. Rigdon also served as President of the Intertribal Timber Council for five years and is currently serving on the Yale School of Environment Alumni Board. Mr. Rigdon obtained a BS in Forest Management from the University of Washington in 1996 and a Master of Forestry from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 2002.