Biodiversity and Climate Change Assessment: Review of Draft Chapters (2025)
Chapter: Appendix B: Committee Biographies
Appendix B
Committee Biographies
Ruth DeFries (NAS/NAE) is a professor of ecology and sustainable development at Columbia University in New York and co-founding dean of the Columbia Climate School. She uses images from satellites and field surveys to examine how the world’s demands for food and other resources are changing land use throughout the tropics. Her research aims to contribute to realistic pathways for people and nature to thrive. A particular geographic focus is central India, which is globally important for tiger conservation and a hotspot for climate impacts on vulnerable populations. DeFries was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2005) and the National Academy of Engineering (2024), received a MacArthur “genius” award, and is the recipient of many other honors for her scientific research. In addition to over 200 scientific papers, she is committed to communicating the nuances and complexities of sustainable development to popular audiences through her books The Big Ratchet: How Humanity Thrives in the Face of Natural Crisis and What Would Nature Do?: A Guide for Our Uncertain Times. DeFries is committed to linking science with policy, for example through her involvement with the Environmental Defense Fund, Science for Nature and People, and World Wildlife Fund. She also founded and continues to direct the Network for Conserving Central India.
Peter J. Auster is a Senior Research Scientist at Mystic Aquarium and Research Professor Emeritus of Marine Sciences at the University of Connecticut. He also served as the Science Director of the former Northeast Underwater Research Technology and Education Center at the University. Auster’s research focuses primarily on the ecology and conservation of fishes, their habitats, and associated biodiversity. From an applied science perspective, he has focused on understanding the ecological impacts of human uses of the sea and on developing a scientific basis for using area-based management approaches as tools for conservation and sustainable use. Among multiple honors, Auster received a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation, was named a Fellow by the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists, and a Mote Eminent Scholar in Fisheries Ecology at Florida State University. He also serves on multiple conservation and fisheries advisory groups including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine and Coastal Area-based Management Advisory Committee and has spoken out publicly about the importance of marine ecosystem protections. He has a PhD in Zoology from the University of Ireland Galway and a MSc in Biological Oceanography from University of Connecticut.
Krista A. Capps is a freshwater community and ecosystem ecologist at the Odum School of Ecology and the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory at the University of Georgia (UGA). She is affiliated with UGA’s Center for Integrative Conservation Research, the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, and the Latin Ameri-
can and Caribbean Studies Institute. Her research focuses on anthropogenic impacts on freshwater biodiversity and function in temperate and tropical systems, especially in the southeastern U.S. and in Mexico and Central America. Capps directs the Future Faculty for Inclusive Research Excellence Postdoctoral Scholars program and is an associate director of the River Basin Center at UGA. She serves on the editorial boards of Freshwater Science and Freshwater Biology and co-founded the Southeast Chapter of the Society for Freshwater Science. Capps holds a BS in biology and political science from Hope College, an MS in environmental science from Indiana University, and a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in sustainability science at the University of Maine.
Gerardo Ceballos Gonzalez (NAS) is a full professor at the Instituto de Ecologia of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He is a leader in ecological and conservation research and focuses on bringing ecological knowledge to bear on crucial societal issues, building bridges between ecology and conservation to find paths towards ecological sustainability, and increasing the ecological literacy of the public. His conservation research includes field work in countryside biogeography as well as theoretical/practical work on the global distributions of mammals and their significance for mammal conservation as well as on global rates of extinction as humanity triggers the sixth great extinction event. Ceballos has also directly contributed to the preservation of Mexico’s biodiversity—a global hotspot—and has helped to create protected areas equivalent to 2% of the Mexican land mass and develop the first Mexican endangered species act. He has published 500 scientific and outreach papers and 58 books. He was elected as a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014 and as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2019, an honor shared by less than ten scientists from Latin America. He won the prestigious BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation in 2023. Ceballos holds a bachelor’s in biology from Mexico, a Master’s degree in ecology from the University of Wales, and a PhD in ecology and conservation from the University of Arizona.
Charles C. Chester is an Assistant Professor at Brandeis University and is a co-Principal Investigator of EMIGRA (Especies Migratorias y Gobernanza Respetuosa de sus Ambientes), an NSF-funded research group examining the role of migratory species in providing ecosystem services and equitable outcomes for people. Chester is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and a Faculty Affiliate with the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He served as co-editor of Conservation and Climate Change: Landscape and Seascape Science, Planning and Action and authored Conservation Across Borders: Biodiversity in an Interdependent World, which examined the global phenomenon of transboundary collaboration for biodiversity conservation. He is currently building EarthWeb.info, a web-guide to environment, conservation, and sustainability, . Chester sits on the Science Advisory Committee of Bat Conservation International (BCI) and is a former Board Chair of BCI and is Chair of the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) Council and former Co-Chair of the Y2Y Board. He received his PhD from the Fletcher School at Tufts, and his long-term book project involves the interwoven histories of gorilla conservation, American taxidermy, European royalty, area-based conservation, settler colonialism, and climate change.
Rodolfo Dirzo (NAS) is the Associate Dean for Integrative Initiatives in Environmental Justice, Bing Professor in Environmental Science, Professor of Earth System Science, and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. His research centers on the study of the ecology and evolution of plants and animals and on the impact of human activities on natural ecosystems. This includes studies on the evolution
of plant defenses, plant and animal extinction, and how this affects ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Most of his work is carried out in Latin America, the Central Pacific, East Africa, and Northern California. His research involves local indigenous and rural communities from the countries where his study sites are located. He also runs science education programs for high school students from under-represented communities in Northern California. As a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Science Education, he participated in and co-authored the nationally adopted Framework for K-12 Science Education. He is also member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the California Academy of Sciences. Dirzo received a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Morelos, Mexico and completed his Masters and PhD in Ecology at the University of Wales.
Cristina Eisenberg is the Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Director of Tribal Initiatives at the Oregon State University (OSU) College of Forestry, and a professor. From 2014 – 2019 she was the Chief Scientist at Earthwatch Institute, where she led and had oversight of a global research program that consisted of 50 projects on 6 continents. Her primary professional expertise is in Indigenous Knowledge (IK). As a Native American (Raramuri and Western Apache heritage) and Latinx ecologist, she is the lead principal investigator on several large, long-term, federal projects with Native American communities that incorporate IK and best Western science in ecocultural restoration of North American forests and grasslands for climate resilience. At OSU she founded and leads the Indigenous Natural Resource Office (INRO) and the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Lab. She advises the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Interior leaders on IK and best practices for partnering with Tribal Nations. She received Outstanding Alumni and Alumni Fellow awards from OSU, and a Research Champion award, given to top researchers at OSU. She was awarded a Maybelle Clark Macdonald endowment to support the INRO. She authored the book The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Species and Biodiversity. Her PhD is in Forestry and Wildlife.
Susanna Fuller is the Vice President of Conservation and Projects at Oceans North, and also holds positions on the Board of Directors of Sustainable Fisheries Partnerships, Ecotrust Canada, the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition and sits on the Steering Committee of the High Seas Alliance. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Oceans Institute. Fuller has a PhD in biology and has worked in marine conservation for over twenty years. Her focus has been on the science policy interface, at the national level in Canada and internationally through fisheries management organizations and high seas ocean governance. She has participated as a member of the Canadian delegation to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings, the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of Parties, and several regional fisheries management organizations. Currently, Fuller’s work focuses on advancing ecosystem-based fisheries management, establishing marine protected areas and ensuring that climate change information is integrated into relevant marine policy. She continues her scientific research in partnership with academic institutions, including the University of Victoria, Dalhousie University and Memorial University.
Patrick Gonzalez is a climate change scientist, forest ecologist, and Associate Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he served as Principal Climate Change Scientist of the U.S. National Park Service and Assistant Director for Climate and Biodiversity of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He advances science-based action on human-caused climate change to protect nature and people, through research on climate change, ecosystems, wildfire, and carbon solutions and assistance to local people and policymakers. Gonzalez has conducted field research in Africa, Latin America, and the U.S., published in Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and other journals, and assisted local
people and field managers in 26 countries and 269 U.S. national parks. Gonzalez has also served as a lead author for four reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the science panel awarded a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He earned his PhD in Energy and Resources at the University of California, Berkeley.
Danielle Ignace is an Associate Professor in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota and a Research Associate at Harvard Forest. Dr. Ignace is an enrolled member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe and an ecophysiologist studying the impacts of climate change, fire, and introduced species on forest ecosystem health and Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada. She currently serves as Chair of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Section of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), Chair of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee for the American Society of Plant Biologists, and is an Associate Editor for the journal Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. Furthering her commitment to building community partnerships, she serves on advisory committees for the BC Parks Foundation and the Silviculture Innovation Program. Dr. Ignace was recently selected as an Excellence in Ecology Scholar by ESA and chapter lead for the first-ever U.S. National Nature Assessment. Fostering unique and transdisciplinary collaborations to understand and communicate pressing global change problems is the hallmark of her research, teaching, YouTube channel, and ArtSci projects.
Karen R. Lips is Deputy Director General of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. She is also a Professor of Biology at the University of Maryland College Park, USA, where she was Director of the Graduate Program in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology. Lips is an ecologist who studies global change and its impacts on animal populations, community composition, and ecosystem function in Latin America and the U.S. She has previously served as Program Director in the Office of International Science and Engineering at the National Science Foundation, as a Jefferson Science Fellow at the Department of State, and was an Embassy Science Fellow in Bogota, Colombia at the Instituto Alexander von Humboldt. Dr. Lips is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Ecological Society of America, and an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow. She was awarded the President’s Award of the Chicago Zoological Society, a Bay and Paul Biodiversity Leadership Award, and the Sabin Amphibian Conservation Award. Previously, she held positions at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the U.S. Museum of Natural History, and was a Leshner Leadership Public Engagement Fellow. Lips holds a BS in Zoology from the University of South Florida, and a PhD in Biology from the University of Miami.
Jennifer Lento is the Director of the Canadian Rivers Institute and a Research Scientist in the Department of Biology at the University of New Brunswick. She is the Science Coordinator of the Freshwater Steering Group of the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP), part of the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna biodiversity working group of the Arctic Council. She is also Co-Chair of the Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network of the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network and a member of the World Water Quality Alliance Biodiversity and Bioassessment workstream. Dr. Lento’s research focus is biodiversity and ecological function of freshwater food webs, with an emphasis on benthic assemblages. Her research evaluates the structural and functional biotic response to natural drivers and anthropogenic stressors as a way to inform practical applications of biomonitoring, including the development of biomonitoring designs and testing of appropriate biotic response metrics. Much of Dr. Lento’s work has been focused on assessing Arctic freshwater biodiversity in the face of a changing climate, and she recently co-led the CBMP’s first circumpolar assessment of the state of Arctic freshwater biodiversity.
Pamela D. McElwee is Professor of Human Ecology at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on strategies for climate mitigation, ecosystem services valuation and biodiversity conservation, and human vulnerability and adaptation to environmental change. McElwee co-chaired the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services “nexus” assessment on biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate change which was approved in late 2024. She was Chapter Lead for Chapter 8 on ecosystems, biodiversity, and ecosystem services for the Fifth US National Climate Assessment (2023). She also served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Climate Change and Land. Her first book, Forests are Gold: Trees, People and Environmental Rule in Vietnam won the European Association for Southeast Asian Studies prize for best social science book on Southeast Asia, and she was awarded a 2019 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship to work on a future book about the environmental legacies of the Vietnam War. She is trained as an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, with a joint PhD in anthropology and forestry from Yale.
John Robinson occupies the Joan L. Tweedy Chair in Conservation Strategy at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). He was WCS’s Executive Vice President for Conservation and Science, directing the organization’s conservation programs in the Americas, Africa and Asia from 1990 to 2020. Robinson has studied subsistence and commercial hunting in tropical forests, and has a longstanding interest in the sustainable use of natural resources. His recent publications have focused on area-based approaches to biodiversity conservation, and the relationship between science and policy. Robinson is a Past President of the Society for Conservation Biology and was the Councilor for North America and Vice President with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature from 2012 to 2021. In 2003, Robinson was inducted into the Royal Order of the Golden Ark by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, in recognition of lifetime achievement and service to conservation. In 2016, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Zoological Society of London, England and in 2021, he was a finalist for the Indianapolis Prize. Robinson received his PhD in zoology from the University of North Carolina and undertook postdoctoral studies with the Smithsonian Institution, and is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.
Fernando Tudela is currently with the Interdisciplinary Center for Biodiversity and Environment, AC. He has had a distinguished career as a policymaker and academician, serving as Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Climate Change in Mexico from 1997-2000 and as a Mexican negotiator to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He has also served as Chief of Staff (1995- 2000) and Under Secretary of Planning and Environmental Policy (2003- 2012) at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Mexican Federal Government, and as a tenured professor at various academic institutions, including Metropolitan Autonomous University and El Colegio de México, both in Mexico City. He also chaired the Climate Change Expert Group of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation and International Energy Agency. He is the author of numerous books and articles relating to various aspects of development and the environment. Several Awards have been bestowed upon him, the last one being the State of Tabasco Environment Award 2019.
