Katherine Cushing is a professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Studies and the executive director of CommUniverCity SJSU, an award-winning non-profit organization serving low-income residents in Central San Jose. She is a nationally recognized expert on sustainability and community-engaged learning and has advised United Nations’ departments, Fortune 500 companies, the cities of San Jose and Palo Alto, California, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Her primary areas of expertise are environmental policy, water resources management, and service learning. Prior to joining San José State University, Cushing was a faculty member at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. She holds a doctoral degree in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University.