She is working with Tom Noordewier, Associate Professor of Marketing, on designing a way to merge multi-criteria decision analysis and conjoint analysis for the purpose of solving environmental problems.  Ms. Hermans would like to be able to apply this technique to the environmental projects in which she is currently involved:  the White River Partnership Forest Management Plan, the White River Partnership Dechannelization Project, and the Duchess County New York Watershed Project.  The first of these involves, as its name suggests, effectively managing forest land; the second involves managing the ecological problems caused by a straightened river; the third involves managing urban development while maintaining ecological balance. 

The technique developed by Hermans and Noordewier will work as follows:  the attributes of the project are bundled into sets of alternatives which are then rated and ranked according to the criteria within the bundles.  The ranking is then regressed, and the alternatives are given weights which are used in making a decision regarding the project.  This method is unique in that it is the first time that conjoint analysis has been used with multi-criteria decision analysis in order to solve an environmental problem. Ms. Hermans is confident that this method will prove useful in helping stakeholders in each project make good decisions about managing their environments.