Data Modeling Strategies in Federal Climate Resilience Efforts

As Senior Vice President for Maximus, Mr. Scott Barr is responsible for the strategy and oversight of Maximus’ Technology Consulting Services practice. Scott holds over 25 years of experience supporting the Department of Defense (DoD), civil agencies, commercial and healthcare organizations. He blends his technology, management, and strategy expertise to lead a team of over 800 technology professionals in creating innovative solutions and services that advance federal missions. Prior to joining Maximus, Scott served as President of a leading healthcare technology firm where he managed and transformed the firm’s technology portfolio. Previous to that, Scott spent two decades with Booz Allen Hamilton, where he held several key leadership roles, including serving as Partner.

Scott has been an Adjunct Professor of Organizational Change Management at Georgetown University. Scott also serves on the Board and Executive Committee for the United Service Organization (USO) Metro, providing support and assistance to military personnel and their families.

Kyle Pfeiffer is the Director of the Center for Climate Resilience and Decision Science within the Decision and Infrastructure Sciences Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He leads a multidisciplinary team of national and homeland security professionals conducting applied research to strengthen the security and resilience of people, assets, and systems to an array of global threats and hazards.

Kyle leads Argonne’s support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and manages the Laboratory’s relationship with the Department of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response. He also supports work with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Kyle maintains joint appointments with Northern Arizona University’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems and the University of Chicago’s Consortium for Advanced Science Engineering.

Prior to joining Argonne, Kyle spent several years as an emergency management consultant—most recently as part of the Justice and Homeland Security team at Booz Allen Hamilton. He also spent four years as an Emergency Medical Technician in Maine working for hospital-based, university-based, and private ambulance services.

Kyle has a BA in Political Science, a MA in Emergency and Disaster Management, a Master of Criminal Justice, and a MS in Science and Technology Leadership from Brown University. He is also a certified Associate Business Continuity Professional (ABCP).

Dr. Peter Thornton studies the interactions of land ecosystems with all other components of the Earth’s climate system, including biogeochemical and physical land-atmosphere feedbacks, and interactions with human systems. His research spans spatial scales from organisms to the global Earth system, and involves model development, model evaluation against observations and experimentation, and model applications to discover emergent properties of ecosystems. A special focus of his research is the coupling of carbon, water, and energy cycles with the biotic and abiotic cycling of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus which limit growth and metabolism of plants and microbes. Other primary research topics include the influence of disturbance on biogeochemistry-climate system feedbacks, model evaluation and uncertainty quantification, and biometeorology.

Dr. Thornton is a scientist in the Climate Change Science Institute and the Environmental Sciences Division, and has been a member of the scientific staff at ORNL since 2008. Dr. Thornton also serves as a mentor to several technology projects within the Oak Ridge Public Schools, and serves as a board member for the Oak Ridge Public Schools Education Foundation.