Director
Global Water Policy Project
Sandra Postel is Director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her research focuses on international water issues and strategies. She is also Visiting Senior Lecturer in Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke College. Ms. Postel is a leading authority on global freshwater issues and has published extensively in both popular and scholarly publications. She is the author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last? and Last Oasis. Before her work at the Global Water Policy Project, she served as Vice President for Research at the Worldwatch Institute, where she remains affiliated as a Senior Fellow.
Ms. Postel studied geology and political science at Wittenberg University and resource economics and policy at Duke University. She has been awarded the Duke University School of Environment’s Distinguished Alumni Award, as well as an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. In 1999 Ms. Postel was granted a lifetime Chair in the International Water Academy in Oslo, Norway.