Geoff Lister/The Ubyssey

Ever since he was a kid in Mexico, Raul Pacheco-Vega wanted to help those who lived around him. He yearned to become a doctor.

“When I was a child, I lived close to the Lerma-Chapala basin. My parents took me to a trip there and I smelled the toxic smells from the [Chapala] lake. And I said, ‘When I grow up, I want to make sure I have the power to take care of the planet.’”

Fast forward to the present and his childhood dream became, in a way, reality.

“I didn’t expect to become a PhD, but being an academic gives me lots of leeway and ability to try to clean the planet,” he said.

Pacheco-Vega now holds a PhD in political science, as well as an MBA and a degree in chemical engineering—the former two being acquired at UBC. He may not be handing out diagnoses for diseases, but instead he is helping people across the Americas through his environmental policy research.

“Right now, researchers are very concerned about water scarcity. I don’t like exploring issues that everyone is looking at, so in 2004 I began working with waste water governance,” he said.

“Most scholars are concerned about how to allocate water, but don’t think about how to re-use it.

“[Which] got me thinking—in regions with high water stress, why don’t we find better ways to improve waste waster management? We need to look at the social conditions and what can be done in the local, regional and federal levels to address the problem.”

Pacheco-Vega teaches several political science classes, mostly focusing on environmental policy, and is passionate about the teaching side of his profession.

“I want to change my students’ thinking. I want them to realize it’s easier to stop polluting than to clean up. I tell them that if I see any of them polluting around campus or unnecessarily wasting resources, I will scold them,” said the professor, chuckling. “I actually don’t, but it’s a powerful message. I’m very serious about it. And they stop polluting and tell others to do the same.”

Outside of academia, Pacheco-Vega is an avid volleyball player, has a knack for photography and has embraced the advances of technology, tweeting obsessively and blogging on a regular basis. He is openly gay and tries to be a role model for the GLBT community.

Pacheco-Vega hopes that the new generation will embrace environmental responsibility and gradually change the way people think about managing waste.

“During my many years of research, my most surprising discovery was that people don’t really care what happens to resources so long as they don’t need to worry about it. And the most intriguing finding was that people change their habits when they are properly informed.”

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