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In the Press

I’m often asked to provide my specialized opinion on matters associated with my research on urban sustainability, water governance, transnational mobilizations and environmental policy in North America (with a special focus on Mexico) or my teaching in environmental politics and public policy. Below are selected instances of media coverage of my work.

My social media presence.

My writing, published in other outlets

My approach to syllabus creation, using a narrative and storytelling techniques, on University Affairs magazine.

My 6 tips on how to kickstart your academic writing, republished in the Times Higher Education blog.

My 5 tips to get your academic writing “unstuck”, republished in the London School of Economics Impact Blog.

My experiences with work-life balance in academia, republished in the SAS Confidential blog.

My own opinion pieces:

On the Duck of Minerva blog, I was (Fall 2016-Spring 2017) a recurring guest blogger. My pieces include the following:

In OpenCanada.org (the online portal of the Canadian International Council) – October 21st, 2014 – Cleaning up Mexico’s environmental act. In this op-ed, I criticize Mexico’s environmental policy record and examine 3 critical areas where Enrique Peña Nieto’s environmental policies are found lacking: water policy, pollution control policy, and sustainable energy policy. I suggest ways in which the Mexican environmental ministry can start improving their dismal record and suggest Mexico has advanced in the field of climate policy evaluation.

In the Journal of Public Policy’s blog – September 23rd, 2014 – What is the future of water governance scholarship?. In this blog post, I suggest that implementing a networked governance paradigm seems easy because society is allegedly eager to participate in policy design, decision-making and implementation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though our current participatory models are robust enough. In the piece I suggest that the future of water governance scholarship may lie in exploring new models of water governance such as polycentricity-based systems.

In La Jornada Aguascalientes, March 22nd, 2013 – Dia Mundial del Agua (In Spanish) A summary of the challenges facing Mexico in regards to water policy, for World Water Day.

In The Ubyssey, March 21st, 2013 – Pacheco-Vega: Think about how you can have an impact on water policy. Here I discuss how students can have an impact on water governance scholarship in Canada.

In The Ubyssey, November 19th, 2012 – Pacheco-Vega: World Toilet Day a chance to ‘give a shit’ about waste water management. Here I discuss why we need to care about the governance of sanitation and wastewater.

In La Cronica de Hoy, October 5th, 2012 – Cartoneros, catadores, minadores y pepenadores: reciclaje informal de basura en países de AL (in Spanish) – a summary of my most recent research project, a comparative study of informal waste picking in Latin America.

In the news:

Part of an international online roundtable of experts on Elinor Ostrom and Jane Jacobs for The Nature of Cities.

Interviews

Interviewed by the podcast The Water Values on my research on intractable water conflicts in Mexico and my other water governance projects.

Interviewed by the podcast Rock Your Research on my experience in academia and my expertise in maintaining a high writing and scholarly output productivity.

Interviewed by Periodico a.m. in Aguascalientes on water governance in the city of Aguascalientes and the importance of engaging civil society in policy decision-making (read the article here – in Spanish only).

Interviewed by McMaster University’s Public Intellectuals Project: Public Intellectuals 2.0: Raul Pacheco-Vega on social media in the academy”: A wonderful interview by Melonie Fullick on how I use social media to engage with fellow scholars, students and colleagues.

Profiled in Wire Arts UBC: Prof. Pacheco-Vega leaving UBC. A lovely note on my leaving UBC in Canada for CIDE in Mexico.

Interviewed for The Ubyssey: Our Campus: Raul Pacheco-Vega, expert on water, Twitter In this Our Campus profile, I explained a bit about my scholarly research and my approach to social media.

Interviewed for The Ubyssey. “Tweeting from the Podium: Social Media in the Classroom“. I explained my approach to implementing social media in the classroom in my teaching with the Department of Political Science at The University of British Columbia.

Political science professor Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega is one of many faculty members who have introduced social media as part of the class experience. Students tweet questions, comment on his class blog and contribute to discussion topics on his Facebook page.

Quotes

Quoted in a piece in The Guardian on the human right to water and the potential negative effect that a beer brewery is having on availability of potable water in the small municipality of Zaragoza, Coahuila, in Mexico. (David Agren, author).

Quoted in a piece in The Guardian on the effects of soda taxes in Mexican public health. I argued that the potentially positive benefit of drinking less soda didn’t have any positive effect on drinking less bottled water. (David Agren, author).

Quoted on a BackBone Magazine piece on emerging technologies for water management. I commented on water quality, water quantity and government regulations’ influence on technology adoption.

Pacheco-Vega said two areas where technology is having an impact on water conservation and management are metering and consumption reduction. “One of the biggest problems is water metering. We don’t actually know how much water we have in aquifers, but now we are starting to see more accurate methods of metering water.”

Quoted in Granville Magazine’s feature “The E-Word” authored by Adam Gaumont (providing commentary on the EcoDensity initiative and the need to analyze a variety of elements that are often overlooked when discussing urban sustainability and density)

While these low-impact housing types promise to inject some much-needed housing units into the market, Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega, a local urban sustainability expert, says that simply adding rental stock won’t be enough for the City to keep its related promise of improved affordability.

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