Stephanie Anagnoson is the director of water and natural resources for Madera County, where she serves as the GSA manager for over 215,000 acres and as the flood control manager. She worked on the board of a mutual water company and for a water retail agency and state water contractor before coming to Madera County.

Ellen Hanak is an adjunct fellow with the PPIC Water Policy Center with decades of experience in California water issues. She founded the PPIC Water Policy Center in 2015, where she held the Ellen Hanak Chair in Water Policy, and served as its first director. She was also a vice president and senior fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California. Previously, she served as the institute’s research director. Under her leadership, the center became a critical source of information and guidance for natural resource management in California. She has authored dozens of reports, articles, and books on water policy, including Managing California’s Water. Her research has been frequently profiled in the national media, and she has participated in briefings, conferences, and interviews throughout the nation and around the world. Her other areas of expertise include climate change and infrastructure finance. Before joining PPIC, she held positions with the French agricultural research system, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and the World Bank. She holds a PhD in economics from the University of Maryland, an MA in economics from the University of Dar es Salaam, and a BA in history from Swarthmore College.

Jeevan Muhar has been engineer manager of the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District since 2017. His duties include administering a 350,000 acre-foot federal water contract, a 30-megawatt federal power contract, and a multitude of water management programs, including one with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. He also oversees major infrastructure. He’s been with the district since 2010. From 2002–06, he served as an engineering consultant for Provost & Pritchard Engineering Group. He was raised in San Joaquin and Kerman (west of Fresno), his family still farms in Fresno County, and he currently lives in Bakersfield with his wife and three sons. He holds a BS in agricultural engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and earned his California registration as a professional engineer in civil engineering in 2006.

Caitlin Peterson is associate director and a research fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center. She is an agroecologist whose research spans groundwater sustainability, soil health, diversified cropping systems, agroecosystem resilience, and the intersections between agriculture and water policy. In her previous work, she explored irrigation and soil ecosystem functions in California almond and tomato systems, crop-livestock integration in Brazilian soybean-beef systems, and small farmer adaptation to climate change in Colombia, Tanzania, and Ghana. As a consulting agroecologist, she led programs linking farmers across the US to emerging soil carbon marketplaces. She holds a PhD in ecology and an MS in international agricultural development from the University of California, Davis.

Jon Reiter is a farmer (almonds, blueberries, pistachios, and wine grapes) and utility-scale solar developer based in the San Joaquin Valley. From 2013–19, he served as the CEO of Maricopa Orchards, a leading almond, pistachio, and fresh produce grower. He led the company on, among other things, a multi-pronged water strategy that included federal and state surface water, long-term surface water contracts, and underground water storage. He sits on the boards of Wheeler Ridge Maricopa Water Storage District, the White Wolf Groundwater Sustainability Agency, and several private industry boards. Previously, he was a finance attorney for Milbank, where he represented developers, lenders, and investors in the water and renewable energy industries. He is a member of the California State Bar, a California real estate broker, and a private pilot. He holds a JD and MBA from the University of Southern California, and a BA in political science and environmental science policy and management from the University of California, Berkeley.

Steven Springhorn is a supervising engineering geologist who manages the technical assistance section within the California Department of Water Resource’s (DWR) Sustainable Groundwater Management Office. Steven joined DWR in 2005; since then, he has focused on technical and policy activities related to California’s groundwater monitoring, management, and data publication.