Kenyan Parliament member Peter Mwathi came to UC Irvine on Wednesday, May 26, to discuss water and sustainable agriculture with university researchers. He’s one of the East African nation’s 10 commissioners and head of human resources. During his visit, Mwathi met with William Cooper, director of UCI’s Urban Water Research Center, and viewed a demonstration of rain prediction research at the campus’s Center for Hydrometeorology & Remote Sensing. He also stopped by the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling for a briefing on NASA’s Gravity Recovery & Climate Experiment, satellite technology used by center director Jay Famiglietti to measure groundwater levels; GRACE could be applied to assess groundwater over large areas of East Africa. Cooper encountered Mwathi on a recent trip to Kenya and Tanzania, where he gave talks on water in Africa.