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MEADVILLE, Pa. — Jan. 18, 2011 — Alon Tal, Israel’s leading environmentalist and the world’s foremost expert on issues related to water in the Middle East, will present a free public lecture on “Modern Environmentalism: Voices from the Planet” on Wednesday, Feb. 2, at 7:30 p.m. in Ford Chapel at Allegheny College.

The lecture is a keynote event in Allegheny’s observance of the Year of Global Citizenship, a series of events and activities aimed at enhancing the campus and community’s understanding of what it means to be a citizen in an increasingly globalized world.

In addition to the keynote lecture, Tal will be spending a week on campus meeting with students in the classroom and in more informal settings.

In 1996 Tal founded the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, a graduate studies center in which Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian students join environmentalists from around the world in an advanced interdisciplinary research program.

He also is chairman of the board for sustainable development at the Jewish National Fund and is on the faculty of Ben Gurion University.

Tal’s career has been a balance between academia and advocacy. He was an adjunct faculty member at Harvard University from 1990 to 1998 and has held faculty appointments at Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University and the University of Otago in New Zealand. He was also the founding director of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, a public interest law group that is Israel’s second largest environmental NGO.

Tal also served as chairman of Life and Environment, an umbrella group for 80 environmental organizations in Israel. He is the author of “Pollution in a Promised Land: an Environmental History of Israel,” among other works.

In 2008 Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection honored Tal with its Lifetime Achievement Award for Environmental Protection, which was granted as part of the country’s 60th anniversary celebrations. He is also a recipient of the Charles Bronfman Prize, which celebrates the vision and talent of an individual or team whose humanitarian work has contributed significantly to the betterment of the world.

Tal has degrees in political science from the University of North Carolina and in law from Hebrew University. He completed his doctoral studies at Harvard University.

For more information on the Year of Global Citizenship at Allegheny College, visit www.allegheny.edu/yearof.