Associate Professor John Bruno
University of North Carolina
Climate change and coral reef resilience: are we expecting too much from marine reserves
John Bruno is a marine ecologist and conservation biologist. His research is focused on understanding and conserving the structure and dynamics of coastal marine communities. He works in a variety of marine habitats including coral reefs, coastal wetland communities, oyster reefs and seagrass beds. Current projects by his research group include investigations of the link between ocean temperatures and regional-scale coral disease epidemics, the importance of predator biodiversity in food webs, and the dispersal and meta-community dynamics of marine plants and animals. John earned his Ph.D. from Brown University in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University. He is currently an Associate Professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
www.brunolab.net
www.marine.unc.edu/people/Faculty/jbruno
Professor Joel Brown
University of Illinois at Chicago
Predator-Prey Foraging Games: Traveling the World in Search of Fear
Professor Joel S. Brown is a wildlife and evolutionary ecologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Director of the Center for Research on Urban Ecology. Childhood experiences in Zimbabwe created a love of nature and animals that grew into an academic career via a Bachelors at Pomona College with Dr. William Wirtz and a PhD at the University of Arizona with Dr. Michael Rosenzweig. A passion for desert rodents provided a setting for doctoral work and a post-doctoral fellowship in Israel. Work in Israel in collaboration with Dr. Burt Kotler on gerbils and their foraging games with owls, snakes and foxes has continued for 20 years. His lab and graduate students have expanded to work from A to Z with aardvarks in South Africa and zebra at the Brookfield Zoo, Chicago. Collaborations with the Kenyan Wildlife Society (black rhinoceros and Amani sunbirds), South African National Parks Service (springbok, hyraxes, klipspringers and domestic goats), King Mahendra Trust for Conservation Biology (snow leopards of Nepal), and Chicago Wilderness and other Chicago organizations (prairie restoration, urban ecology) have cultivated an evolutionary approach to wildlife behaviors, populations, communities, and conservation.
www.uic.edu/depts/bios/faculty/brown/brownj.shtmlProfessor Jane Lubchenco
Valley Professor of Marine Biology and
University Distinguished Professor of Zoology
Oregon State University
Ecological Science for Sustainable Well-Being
Dr. Jane Lubchenco is an environmental scientist and marine ecologist who is actively engaged in teaching, research, synthesis and communication of scientific knowledge. Her Ph.D. is from Harvard University in marine ecology.
Jane leads an interdisciplinary team of scientists who study the marine ecosystem off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California. PISCO (the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans; www.piscoweb.org), is learning how the ecosystem works, how it is changing and how humans can modify their actions to ensure continued benefit from ocean ecosystems.
Jane actively promotes science and communicates scientific knowledge in international and national arenas. She is a former president of the International Council for Science, AAAS, and the Ecological Society of America (the other ESA!). She was appointed by President Clinton to two terms on the National Science Board (advises the President and Congress and oversees the National Science Foundation).
Jane founded or co-founded three organizations that communicate scientific knowledge to the public, policy makers, the media and the private sector: (1) The Aldo Leopold Leadership Program (teaches outstanding academic environmental scientists to be effective leaders and communicators of scientific information), (2) COMPASS (the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea, communicates marine science) and (3) Climate Central (a reputable source of information about climate science and solutions).
Jane participated actively in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a 5-year, international scientific assessment of the consequences of environmental changes to human well-being. Among other things, she co-chaired the MA’s Synthesis for Business and Industry. Her scientific contributions in ecology are widely recognized. 8 of her publications are “Science Citation Classics”; she is one of the ‘most highly cited’ ecologists in the world (top 0.5%). She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the European Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, and the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World.
http://lucile.science.oregonstate.edu/lubchenco/
Professor Meg Lowman
Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies, and
Director of Environmental Initiatives
New College of Florida
Down Under at the Top - 40 Years of Advances in Forest Canopies
Meg Lowman pioneered the science of canopy ecology. For 30 years, she has designed
hot-air balloons and walkways for treetop exploration to solve mysteries in the world’s forests,
with special expertise on the links between insect pests and ecosystem health. Meg is
affectionately called the grandmother of canopy research as one of the first scientists to explore
this “eighth continent”. She relentlessly works to “map” the canopy for biodiversity and to
champion conservation of tropical forests as well as other ecosystems. Her academic training included Williams College (BA, Biology); Aberdeen University (MSc, Ecology); Sydney University (PhD, Botany); and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business (Executive Management). In Australia,
she worked on rain forest canopy ecology under the supervision of Peter Myerscough, completed
postdoctoral research with Harold Heatwole on eucalypt dieback, and served as a lecturer at University of New England as well as a lifelong career partnership with Joseph Connell studying tropical forest (and coral reef) diversity in Queensland.
Meg facilitates policy solutions using science education as a tool, drawing upon a lifetime of research and conservation. Her international network and passion for science have led her into leadership roles where she seeks best practices to solve environmental challenges. She currently serves as Vice President of The Explorers Club; Vice President of the Ecological Society of America; Treasurer of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation; Executive Director of Florida’s TREE Foundation; and Cluster Chair for the Sarasota Economic Development Corporation. She frequently speaks about her science adventures to groups ranging from elementary classes to corporate executives to international conferences. Her numerous awards include the Margaret Douglas Medal for Excellence in Conservation Education from the Garden Club of America; Girls Inc. Visionary Award; Mendel Medal for achievements in science and spirit; Lowell Thomas Medal for discoveries in the canopy; and election as a Kilby laureate and an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow. Carolyn Shoemaker of the US Department of Interior named an asteroid after her. Meg has authored over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and her first book, Life in the Treetops, received a cover review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. Its sequel, It’s a Jungle Up There, was co-authored with her two sons and advocates for a family conservation ethic. “Canopymeg” is currently Director of Environmental Initiatives and Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at New College of Florida. She also serves as the Science Advisor for Climate Change to Florida’s CFO, Alex Sink. Previously she served as CEO of The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at Williams College, and comanaged a sheep and cattle station in outback Australia. Meg is married to attorney Michael Brown. They are the proud parents of Eddie, research associate at Environmental Defense working on urban environmental policy; and James, applied math major at Princeton University who is modeling forests as global carbon sinks. Reflecting her love for linking kids to nature, Meg’s personal mantra is no child left indoors.
Professor Rick Shine
Professor in Evolutionary Biology and ARC Federation Fellow, University of Sydney
Cane toads in Australia: biology, impact and control
Richard Shine is a Professor of Biology at the University of Sydney, and a Federation Fellow of the Australian Research Council. He has conducted extensive field and laboratory-based research on reptiles and amphibians in many parts of the world, with an emphasis on the ecology, evolution and conservation of snakes. He has published more than 600 papers in scientific journals, and attracted many national and international awards for his work. The major thrust of his current research involves approaching conservation challenges from an evolutionary perspective, and embedded within a detailed understanding of reptile and amphibian biology.
Conference Dinner Speaker
Professor Steve Simpson
ARC Federation Fellow, University of Sydney
Swarms, cannibals, obesity and ageing: some pre-dinner nutritional ecology
Steve Simpson is a biologist who has pioneered developments in nutritional physiology, ecology, and behaviour. His aims to understand swarming in locusts and to devise a new framework for studying nutrition have provided an understanding of locust swarming that links neurophysiological events in individual insects to mass migration, and led to new insights into the dietary causes of the human obesity epidemic. Along the way, Steve and his collaborators have made contributions to aquaculture, conservation biology, ecology, evolutionary biology and gerontology.
Steve completed an Honours degree at the University of Queensland, before undertaking a PhD at the University of London on a University of Queensland Travelling Scholarship. He then spent much of his career (22 years) at Oxford University, where he became Professor in the Department of Zoology and Curator of the University Museum of Natural History. In 2005 he returned to Australia as an ARC Federation Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Sydney. Stephen is Visiting Professor at Oxford, and has been a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of Arizona, and Guest Professor at the University of Basel. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and in 2008 he was awarded the Eureka Prize for Scientific Research.
