INTERA’s Dr. Alison Adams, PE, Principal Water Resources Engineer, recently joined the External Advisory Committee for the Texas A&M University X-Grant Project Pathways to Sustainable Urban Water Security: Desalination and Water Reuse in the 21st Century. The three-year project examines desalination and water reuse globally and across case study sites in Texas, California, Australia, and Israel. A key challenge is to identify how new technological interventions can be channeled into pathways towards sustainable water security and, in particular, to consider how anticipatory governance can be fostered to support that process. The interdisciplinary research team will examine several aspects of desalination and wastewater reuse to better understand the complex water governance regimes that promote and challenge the transformation of water-stressed urban regions. The project is one of eight interdisciplinary research projects that will share $7 million in funding from Texas A&M University's X-Grants program, an initiative of the 10-year, $100 million President's Excellence Fund. The goal of the program is to unlock creative and imaginative ideas that will address issues that significantly impact the most important challenges facing global society. Dr. Adams will advise the committee on project aspects related to the latest technological developments in the water reuse and desalination industries and governance challenges faced in supplying unconventional water to urban populations. Dr. Adams has over 30 years of experience focused on large-scale water supply and management issues, including serving as the Chief Technical Officer for Tampa Bay Water and as the Chair of the Water Utility Climate Alliance. She has directed research into climate variability and its effects on supply reliability for the Tampa Bay region, and management strategies to mitigate these effects.