biological scales using reflected photons and process-based predictive models. Her work focuses on the physiological and evolutionary dimensions of plant ecology that influence community assembly and ecosystem function. Cavender-Bares is particularly interested in the genetic and evolutionary basis of variation in plant phenotypes and spectral properties that can advance remote sensing of biodiversity. She is on the Governing Board of the Ecological Society of America and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Cavender-Bares received a Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University.

Bala Chaudhary is an associate professor of environmental studies and the Ecology, Evolution, Environment and Society Program at Dartmouth College. She previously held faculty appointments at DePaul University and Loyola University Chicago. Chaudhary’s primary research expertise is in plant-soil-microbial ecology spanning organizational scales from genes to ecosystems across spatial scales. Research in her lab uses continent-wide field experiments, big data synthesis, and trait-based approaches to study fungal dispersal at macrosystem scales. Prior to academia, Chaudhary worked as a restoration consultant designing habitat mitigation plans for endangered species management. Chaudhary is a National Science Foundation CAREER awardee, committee member for the Ecological Society of America, and award-winning advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM. She earned a B.A. in biological sciences from the University of Chicago and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in biological sciences from Northern Arizona University.

Brian J. Enquist is a professor at the University of Arizona and an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute. He is a broadly trained physiologist, ecologist, and botanist whose research program investigates the origin and maintenance of biological diversity and the functioning of the biosphere. His lab uses biological scaling laws and is developing a general trait-based theory. His lab strives to develop a more integrative, quantitative, and predictive framework for biology, community ecology, and global ecology. Enquist is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a Fulbright Scholar (Costa Rica), a National Geographic Explorer, and a recipient of the ESA’s Mercer Award, and a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award. He was a fellow at the Center for Theoretical Study in Prague, Czech Republic; the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in Montpellier, France; and the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Enquist received a Ph.D. in biology in 1998 from the University of New Mexico and was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Jack A. Gilbert is a professor in pediatrics and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and associate vice chancellor for marine science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Prior to his current position, he was group leader for Microbial Ecology at Argonne National Laboratory, a professor of surgery, and director of the Microbiome Center at the University of Chicago. He cofounded the Earth Microbiome Project and

American Gut Project. He is the founding editor in chief of mSystems journal. Gilbert co-authored Dirt is Good, a popular science guide to the microbiome and children’s health and founded BiomeSense, Inc. to produce automated microbiome sensors. In 2021, Gilbert became the principal investigator and director of the UCSD Microbiome and Metagenomics Center. In 2023, he was elected to president of Applied Microbiology International. Gilbert received a Ph.D. in molecular microbiology from the University of Nottingham.

N. Louise Glass is a recent emeritus professor (2023) in the Plant and Microbial Biology Department (PMB) at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior faculty scientist in the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Glass was previously chair/associate chair of the PMB Department and previously was director of the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division at LBNL. Her research focus has been on filamentous fungi, exploring molecular mechanisms of cell-to-cell communication and somatic cell fusion associated with hyphal network formation, plant cell wall deconstruction by fungi and how these processes affect ecosystems. Her recent work has focused on developing high-throughput functional genomics for nonmodel fungi with an aim to understanding and controlling the interactions between plant roots and neighboring microbes to gain insights into carbon cycling, carbon sequestration, and plant productivity in natural and agricultural ecosystems. Glass is the Fred E. Dickinson Chair of Wood Science and Technology; a fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the Mycological Society of America; a recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award; and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021. Glass received a Ph.D. in plant pathology from the University of California, Davis, and performed postdoctoral work on fungal genetics and molecular biology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Scott Goetz is a Regents Professor of Earth Observation & Ecological Informatics at Northern Arizona University. He has conducted satellite remote sensing research over the past 30+ years. He has served on working groups for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; United Nations programs on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+); the U.S. Global Change Research Program; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; and interagency programs on carbon cycle science, climate change, and terrestrial ecology. He is science lead of NASA’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment and deputy principal investigator of NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation. He has mentored dozens of early-career scientists and graduate students, is editor in chief of Environmental Research Ecology, executive board member of Environmental Research Letters, past deputy director of the Woods Hole Research Center, a Fulbright Research Scholar (France), and past associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences and Remote Sensing of Environment. Goetz received a Ph.D. in geographic sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park.

the Climate and Fire technical input reports for the 2013 National Climate Assessment, the 2015 USDA Forest Service Drought Synthesis, led significant portions of the 2021 USDA Invasive Species National Assessment, and worked on the Fifth National Climate Assessment Forestry Chapter. Ford Miniat received a B.S. in applied biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an M.S. in botany from the University of South Florida, and a Ph.D. in forest resources from the University of Georgia.

Shahid Naeem is a professor of ecology and chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology at Columbia University. His research has focused on the ecological and environmental consequences of biodiversity loss across all scales. His theoretical, experimental, and observational studies have been conducted across a wide array of organisms (plants, animals and microorganisms), habitats (freshwater, terrestrial, and marine), and ecosystems (tundra, rainforests, grasslands, urban- and agro-ecosystems) in countries around the world. He is an Aldo Leopold Leadership fellow; a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Ecological Society of America (ESA), and Michigan Society of Fellows; was elected president of ESA in 2022; and is the recipient of the Buell and Mercer Awards from the ESA and Lenfest Award from Columbia. Naeem received a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of California, Berkeley, and served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, Imperial College of London, and the University of Copenhagen.

Phoebe L. Zarnetske is a professor of spatial and community ecology in the Department of Integrative Biology at Michigan State University (MSU) and is director of the Institute for Biodiversity, Ecology, Evolution, and Macrosystems. Her research integrates insights from climate change experiments with macrosystems science and modeling of big data in ecology across scales. Her research on climate change ecology has elucidated important roles of biotic interactions among species, and how these interactions can exacerbate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity across scales. She co-leads the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Climate Intervention Biology Working Group, bringing together experts in climate science and ecology to research the potential ecological impacts from climate intervention. She received the MSU College of Natural Science Early Career Research Award, is lead principal investigator (PI) of NSF Macrosystems NEON and NASA grants, and is a co-PI of the Kellogg Biological Station Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site. Zarnetske received a B.A. in biology from Colby College, an M.S. in ecology from Utah State University, and a Ph.D. in integrative biology from Oregon State University where she was an NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship fellow. She completed her postdoctoral training as a Yale Climate and Energy Institute postdoctoral fellow in the Yale School of the Environment. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s workshop on Climate Intervention in an Earth Systems Science Framework.