Current Position: Vice President of Research, Northern Arizona University

Education: Ph.D., Biology, Cornell University, 1983

Dr. Huenneke’s research interests include conservation biology (especially the biology of invasive species and of rare plants), the consequences of biodiversity loss, and the community and ecosystem dynamics of arid lands.  She worked in southeastern swamp forests, California grasslands, and Hawaii’s wet forests before concentrating on the Chihuahuan desert, the least well known of North America’s hot deserts.   Dr. Huenneke has edited two books, and served on the editorial boards of Conservation Biology, Journal of Ecology, and Ecological Applications.  She serves as Vice President for Public Affairs for the Ecological Society of America, and is a former fellow of the Aldo Leopold Leadership program, a program designed to provide academic ecologists with skills for communicating with a broad range of audiences.  Additionally, she has served as an advisor to the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a leader of the New Mexico Rare Plant Recovery Team.

Current Position: Senior Scientist, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY

Education: Ph.D. Biology/Plant Ecology, Dartmouth College, 1981

Dr. Lovett’s research focuses on how human-caused perturbations such as air pollution, introduced pests and pathogens, and insect defoliators affect forest ecosystems. Working primarily in the forests of the northeastern U.S., he investigates how invasive pests and diseases alter forest composition and ecosystem functions such as productivity, nitrogen cycling, and carbon storage. He also studies patterns of atmospheric pollutant deposition and the effects of air pollution on ecosystem health. Dr. Lovett currently serves as the chair of the Steering Committee of the Northeastern Ecosystem Research Cooperative, is on the editorial board of the journal Biogeochemistry, and is a past chair of the Gordon Conference on Forested Catchments.

Current position: Sloan Lindemann Professor of Biology, Brown University

Education: Ph.D. Ecology, Colorado State University, 1982

Dr. Sala is the Sloan Lindemann Professor of Biology at Brown University and serves as the Director Brown University’s Environmental Change Initiative.  As president of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment and a coordinating lead author of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, he is an international leader in ecological science and global environmental policy.

Dr. Sala has explored several topics throughout his career, ranging from the consequences of changes in biodiversity on ecosystem function—an analysis that included the development of biodiversity scenarios for the next 50 years— to water controls on carbon and nitrogen dynamics in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. He is particularly interested in working with scenarios as a way of simplifying, understanding, and communicating the complex relationships that emerge from the study of social-ecological systems. He employs a wide variety of tools, especially direct observations, manipulative field experiments, and simulation modeling. He has worked in the Patagonian steppe, annual grasslands of California, steppes of Colorado, and deserts of Southern Africa; he currently has experiments in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico.

Sala has served as editor of Global Change Biology, the president of the Argentinean Society of Ecology, and as a member of the governing board of the Ecological Society of America.

Current position: Professor, Dept. Biology, University of New Mexico
Education: Ph.D. Botany, University of Oklahoma, 1981

Dr. Collins’ research focuses on long-term studies of plant community ecology, especially in grassland and prairie ecosystems. He analyzes community structure and gradients, and the processes that influence species diversity, distribution, and abundance. He also investigates the role of disturbance, including fires and grazing, in communities. He is currently the Lead Investigator of the Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research Site in New Mexico. Dr. Collins also serves as President of the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, and has worked previously for the National Science Foundation’s Office of Environmental Biology.

Current position:  Director, Joint Global Change Research Institute

Education: Ph.D. Biology, Princeton University, 1980

Dr. Anthony Janetos is the Director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute. Previously, he served as Vice President and Director of the Global Change Program at the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment; Vice President for Science and Research at the World Resources Institute;  and Senior Scientist for the Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Program in NASA’s Office of Earth Science. He was a co-chair of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change and an author of the IPCC Special Report on Land-Use Change and Forestry and the Global Biodiversity Assessment, and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.  Most recently he was a co-convening lead author of the Climate Change Science Program’s Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3, Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity.  He also was Program Scientist for NASA’s Landsat 7 mission. Dr. Janetos has many years of experience in managing scientific and policy research programs on a variety of ecological and environmental topics, including air pollution effects on forests, climate change impacts, land-use change, ecosystem modeling, and the global carbon cycle. With many collaborators, he has written and spoken about the need to understand the scientific, environmental, economic, and policy linkages among the major global environmental issues, and the need to ensure that basic human needs are a primary consideration of the environmental science and policy communities.

Current position:  Dean, University of Washington College of the Environment

Education: Ph.D. Forest Resources, University of Washington, 1985

Dr. Graumlich’s position as Director of the School of Natural Resources allows her to pursue her career-long goal of deepening our understanding of the impacts of climate change on ecosystem, especially in mountains of western North America. Working with colleagues in the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT), she develops science-informed adaptation strategies for climate change in concert with resource managers.  She is particularly interested in adaptation strategies that speak to the issue of how parks and protected areas adapt to rapid climate change. Dr. Graumlich was recipient of the W. J. Cooper Award from the Ecological Society of America in 1988 and was elected as a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science in 2004.

Current position:  Professor of Biology, West Virginia University

Education: Ph.D. Dept. Botany, Duke University, 1981

Dr. McGraw’s research focuses on conservation biology, invasive species, and remote sensing of plant populations.  His studies investigate the potential ecological impact of invasive species on natural ecosystems and the services they provide.  He also studies rare species that are harvested from the wild, such as ginseng and goldenseal.  Dr. McGraw is interested in explicitly linking management of these plants with scientific knowledge of the effects of harvesting.  His interests in remote sensing and conservation biology have converged with a study of endangered Hawaiian silverswords growing on the Haleakala volcano in Maui, Hawaii.  He has served on panels at the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, as an advisor to the US Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service, and as grant reviewer for four national agencies.

Current position: Professor of Ecology and Founding Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University

Education: Ph.D. Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1973

Dr. Christensen’s research focuses on the effects of physical disturbance on ecosystems. His studies include analysis of patterns of forest development following cropland abandonment, comparative studies of ecosystem responses to varying fire regimes across temperate North America, and the use of remote sensing to evaluate long-term changes in forest ecosystems.  Dr. Christensen has also written widely on the importance of natural disturbance in the management of forests, shrublands, and wetlands. He is interested in the application of basic ecological theory and models to management, and has collaborated with others to develop the concept of ecosystem management.  He has served on the US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (appointed by former President Clinton), as the Chair of Science Panel for the National Commission on Sustainable Forestry, and as the Dean for the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment.  Dr. Christensen also served as a president for the Ecological Society of America.

Current position: Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation, Professor Emeritus of Wildlife Ecology and Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Senior Fellow and Science Advisor, Aldo Leopold Foundation

Education: Ph.D. Vertebrate Zoology, Cornell University, 1972

Dr. Temple conducts research on a wide variety of topics related to biodiversity with a goal of understanding threats to wildlife and ways in which to restore the security and functionality of species populations and ecological communities.  Much of his research focuses on bird ecology, particularly on assessing the impacts of humans, land use, and habitat fragmentation on endangered species.  Dr. Temple has served as President of the Society for Conservation Biology and is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Ornithologists’ Union.

Current position: Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science and Professor, Biology, University of Washington

Education: Ph.D. Zoology, Ohio State University, 1974

Dr. Boersma’s academic research is in conservation biology and the role of seabirds as indicators of environmental change. She has been at the University of Washington, since 1974 and held the Wadsworth Chair in Conservation Science since 2005. Since 1982, she has directed the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Magellanic Penguin Project at Punta Tombo, Argentina, and is a scientific fellow for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Her research focuses on Magellanic penguins in the South Atlantic, assessing their biological characteristics and the effects of human perturbations and policy changes on their survival. Dr. Boersma also served as President of the Society for Conservation Biology.