Environmental Advisory Council
Member Biographies
Jack Abel
Jack H. Abel is a retired Professor of Molecular
Biology, Lehigh University
He and his wife Carolyn have three children. Jack has been
a Bethlehem resident since 1985. He served seven years on
the Bethlehem Planning Commission, the last two as chair.
He has been involved in environmental research and sustainability
activities since his college years in the fifties.
Fran Cundall
Anne Felker
Anne Felker lives and works in the City of Bethlehem.
She is a lifelong bicyclist and advocate for environmentally
appropriate transportation. She has worked for a number of
years on the City’s Citizen’s Traffic Advisory
Committee and has also taught bicycle safety through the Coalition
for Appropriate Transportation (CAT.) Anne also has botanical
interests and some practical experience in encouraging native
plants and identifying and discouraging invasive species in
the City’s public spaces.
Arthur Kney (Chair)
Arthur D. Kney has been a resident of Bethlehem
PA since 1993. He is married (wife - Linda) and has one four
year old daughter as well as two wonderful cats. He received
his Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Environmental Engineering
from Lehigh University in 1999 and his professional engineering
license in 2007. From time he left Lehigh University he has
been a member of the Lafayette College community. He is currently
serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering.
Throughout Kney’s career he has been
active in the community, at the local, state and national
level. He has served as Vice President of Lehigh Valley Section
of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and AWWA/ASCE
WTP Design 4th Edition Steering Committee. He currently serves
on the national ASCE/Environmental and Water Resources Institute
(EWRI) Water Supply Engineering Committee as secretary, the
state PWEA Research Committee as chair, and locally on the
Bushkill Stream Conservancy board and Environmental/Water
Resources, Lehigh Valley Section of ASCE.
Kney’s areas of interests involve water
and wastewater treatment (including industrial wastewater
treatment) and urban sprawl and its environmental effects
on watersheds. He has been awarded a number of NSF grants,
both research and teaching. Research areas he has been pursuing
over the last few years are:
- Sustainable environmental practices such
as integrating composting with large operations such as
Lafayette College.
- Technologies for treating arsenic, perchlorate
and pharmaceuticals and
- Phosphate and Nitrate Removal from Wastewater,
- The Effects of Non-Point Source Pollution
on Water Quality and Biodiversity.
Together with many EXCEL Scholars, and other
faculty members he has written a number of peer reviewed journal
articles, many conference papers, co-authored a book chapter
and a technical guidance manual. Mike
Topping (Secretary)
Mike Topping has lived in the Lehigh Valley
since 1955 and been a resident of Bethlehem, PA since 1968.
He is married (wife - Nancy) and has three grown children,
Christopher, Susan and Brian. Presently there is no dog, usually
a black lab can be found around the house, but we do have
a cat. He received his Bachelor of Science in Economics from
Franklin and Marshall College in 1963, served in the US Army
as a counter intelligence agent and returned from Vietnam
in 1966. Starting in 1967 for the City of Easton, and continuing
from 1968 to 2001 for the City of Bethlehem, he has worked
as a city planner. Retired in 2002, he has worked part time
for the Borough of Nazareth as a Zoning Officer and currently
works part time for the Easton Planning Office.
Always actively interested in the outdoors and
organized sports, Mike has wrestled in high school and college,
played various team sports and enjoyed many years of golf
and tennis. Once retired, Mike became active in various civic
and sportsmen’s organizations and is currently the President
of the Northampton County Federation of Sportsmen’s
Clubs.
Although interested in and willing to
support all of the EAC’s programs and concerns, Mike
is particularly interested in preserving our natural environment
in Bethlehem and protecting those areas which are most prone
to damage during development – namely the flood plain
areas adjacent to the Monocacy and Saucon Creeks and the Lehigh
River and the steep slope areas near Camel’s Hump and
South Mountain.
George Yasko (Vice Chair)
George Yasko has been a life long resident of
Bethlehem. He is married, wife Cherie, with three daughters
Jamie, Katie and Danielle and two cats Callie and Smooch.
He is the Field Projects and Laboratory Manager for the Lehigh
Earth Observatory (LEO) at Lehigh University. George joined
the Lehigh staff in 1982 as a Laboratory Technician with the
Geological Sciences Department. Starting in 1991 he was the
Instrument Technician for the Earth and Environmental Sciences
Department (EES), which was formed through the merger of faculty
from the Geological Sciences and Biology Departments. He participated
in the pilot program for the Lehigh Earth Observatory (LEO)
in 1997. When LEO began official operation in 1999 he joined
the LEO staff. While with EES George designed and built a
variety of instruments. He also has participated in a number
of research projects, which include a dive on ALVIN.
With LEO, George is responsible for directing the student
internship program and LEO in general. He provides instruction
to student interns on laboratory, field, data collection and
analysis techniques. He develops student projects with external
partners and also continues to design and build instrumentation.
George is a graduate of Ryder Technical Institute.
He spent 9 years employed by Ingersoll Rand Corporation –
Turbo Division’s Development Instrumentation Group.
There he developed, designed and built instrumentation systems
and also instrumented steam turbines, axial flow compressors,
compressor blades and jet engines for a variety of vibration,
stress and performance measurements.
George has been a middle school and high school
football coach for 31 years. He is an avid cyclist and enjoys
attempting to play the piano! At anytime of the year he can
tell you how many days until Christmas!
Johanna Blake
Laura Bochner
Maura Sullivan
Maura Sullivan is an ecologist who lives in
north Bethlehem with her husband and infant daughter. Maura
received a bachelor of science degree in biology from St.
Lawrence University in 1999. Since then has worked for The
Nature Conservancy (Eastern New York chapter), Natural Lands
Trust, and the Morris Arboretum specializing in botany, ecological
management, and conservation. She obtained a masters in Earth
and Environmental sciences from Lehigh University and is currently
pursuing a PhD in the same department. Her academic research
focuses on understanding patterns of vegetation and how they
change through time. As a mom, she has recently become more
interested in issues of community and sustainability. |
