Dr. John Little

FACULTY AFFILIATE   |   Global Change Center

Civil & Environmental Engineering

Lab Website  •  Google Scholar  •  Dept Page

(540) 231-0836 •  jcl@vt.edu

Little has made significant and sustained advances in three quite different areas (indoor environmental quality, lake and reservoir management, and interdisciplinary research) and has done this at a level that is internationally recognized.  Building on his interdisciplinary expertise, he is now almost exclusively focused on societal challenges of the Anthropocene.  Because Anthropocene systems are highly interdependent and dynamically evolving, often with accelerating rates of cultural and technological evolution, the ensuing family of societal challenges (e.g., climate change and impacts, renewable energy, adaptive infrastructure, disasters, pandemics, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, sustainable development, resilience and equity) are also highly interdependent and need to be framed and addressed in an integrated fashion.  To catalyze and manage the required societal transformations at the local, regional, and global scale, an evolutionary, system-of-systems convergence paradigm is needed.

Little received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a master’s degree in physical chemistry from the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.