Heather Lukacs

Heather Lukacs is a 3rd year PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, with a focus on water resources management. Heather’s dissertation research takes an organizational learning approach to understanding problem solving and adaptation of small water providers in low-income communities in California. She is interested in how organizational learning can promote local management and valuation of common-pool resources in underserved communities.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Heather’s previous work has been on the design and implementation of appropriate technology for drinking water treatment in disadvantaged communities of the Global South. She received undergraduate and masters degrees and worked as a lecturer in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with an appointment from the Cambridge-MIT Institute. As a lecturer, Heather developed course curriculum for a new masters program in Sustainable Development at Cambridge University. Partnering with community-based organizations in Nepal, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, she also planned and coordinated joint engineering / business student household water treatment projects.

As a student at MIT, Heather studied the bioremediation of soils contaminated with petroleum in Mendoza, Argentina, the biogeochemical cycling of arsenic in a pond in Arlington, MA, and modeling the fate of combined sewer overflow discharges in the Merrimack River. During her time at MIT, Heather was also part of a semifinalist team in MIT’s 50K competition for a project on ecologically sustainable hydropower, and later part of another team that received the Lemelson International Technology Prize for design of an innovative and affordable household water treatment technology.

Heather’s research interests have roots in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia where she lived until starting college at MIT.Her values in community, social justice, and the environment are the foundation and driving force behind both her academics and her work as a river guide, kayak instructor, and outdoor educator.