NorthWorks

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D. Warner North is principal scientist of NorthWorks. Over the past fifty years Dr. North has carried out applications of decision analysis and risk analysis for electric utilities in the US and Mexico, for the petroleum and chemical industries, and for government agencies with responsibility for energy and environmental protection. Dr. North has a long association with Stanford University as adjunct faculty beginning in 1976 and as a consulting professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering from 1988 to 2009.

Cheryl North (Warner's wife and the director of the music journalism activities of NorthWorks) is a noted music columnist for the Oakland Tribune and other papers of the Bay Area News Group. She writes performance reviews and feature articles for other publications, including Opera Now, based in Great Britain. Profile/interviews with major figures on the international, national, and local San Francisco Bay Area classical music scene have become an important specialty for which she is in demand.

New from Cheryl North:

Berkeley Symphony 2017

Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13, Babi Yar, powerfully sets the text by Yevgeni Yevtushenko commemorating the massacre of Jews at Babi Yar during World War II. It employs a solo bass voice and male chorus plus symphony orchestra. Here is Cheryl North's column previewing the Berkeley Symphony's May 4 performance.

San Francisco Symphony 2017

Das kalgende Lied is a rarely performed early work of Gustav Mahler. Michael Tilson Thomas led the San Francisco Symphony in semi-staged performances January 13-15, 2017. Read Cheryl North's column with comments by San Francisco Symphony Chorus conductor Ragnar Bohlin.

San Francisco Opera

Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee makes his S.F. Opera debut in Andrea Chenier on opening night of the Fall 2016 season.

2016 was the fourth year in a row for a title role opening night interview. Below are interviews from 2015, 2014 and 2013 for opening night title roles and substitutes who sang leading roles on short notice.

Baritone James Rutherford has performed Hans Sachs at Bayreuth, but there he did not have to make shoes while he sang. Read Cheryl North's interview with this international star who has filled in for San Francisco Opera on short notice in this difficult title role in Wagner's Die Meistersinger.

Soprano Leah Crocetto sings the title role in Verdi's Luisa Miller to open the season.

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky brings outstanding acting as well as singing to the title role of Norma. But she might have opted for archaeology or playing the flute.

Bashkir bass Ildar Abdrazakov sang the title role in Boito's Mefestophele to open the San Francisco Opera 2013 fall season on September 6.

San Francisco Symphony 2015

Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt returned February 19-21 for a program of Brahms, including A German Requiem.

Warner and Cheryl North backstage at Davies Hall with Maestro Herbert Blomstedt after A German Requiem February 20, 2015

New from Warner North:

As area editor for the journal Risk Analysis Warner North organized and wrote the introduction for a special issue published September 2016 on health risk analysis for criteria air pollutants. He has written an introductory commentary for a survey article on risk from space weather. Both the article and the introduction are in the February 2017 issue.

A profile article on Warner North prepared by Michael Greenberg and Karen Lowrie appears in the March 2017 issue of Risk Analysis.

National Academies/National Research Council

Warner North served as a peer reviewer for two reports. "Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology" was released March 2017, and "A Review of the Environmental Protection Agency's Science to Achieve Results Program," was released in June 2017.

2013 National Research Council Workshops on Shale Gas Development

Warner North was a member of the committee that organized two workshops, which took place in the National Academies' Keck Center Auditorium in Washington D. C. The first workshop, held on May 30-31, 2013, addressed risks from hydraulic fracturing (sometimes called "fracking") to release natural gas from shale formations. The second, held on August 15-16, 2013, presented ideas for improving governance for the management of such risks. Warner North was a session chair in the first workshop and gave a presentation on public and stakeholder participation in the second workshop.

The links above provide access to the workshop agendas, abstracts, presentation slides, and video archives for most of the presentations. A special Issue of Environmental Science and Technology (August 5, 2014) contains papers based on presentations at the two workshops. A summary volume on the two workshops, written by staff director/rapporteur Paul Stern, is now available through National Academy Press.

2015 Health Risk Communication for the Council of Canadian Academies

Warner North has been a panel member on the Expert Panel on Effectiveness of Health Risk Communication, for the Council of Canadian Academies. He has been part of a multidisciplinary group of experts that has addressed the question: How can the effectiveness of health risk communications be measured and evaluated? The report Health Product Risk Information: Is the message Getting Through? from the expert panel was published on June 9, 2015.