Council of External Science Advisors

Dr. Nancy Knowlton is a distinguished marine scientist and author (Citizens of the Sea) whose discovery that some corals are more sensitive to high temperatures continues to shape reef conservation efforts. Her use of state-of-the-art molecular approaches has led to the recognition that the biodiversity of the ocean is far greater than previously recognized. Her work has been cited over 46,000 times.

Dr. Knowlton spent much of her career at the Smithsonian, first at the Tropical Research Institute in Panama and then at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.  She was also a professor at Yale and at the University of California San Diego, where she founded the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Realizing that the students were not content with simply documenting problems, she created the “Beyond the Obituaries: Success Stories in Ocean Conservation” symposia, followed by the #OceanOptimism Twitter campaign, and the Smithsonian’s Earth Optimism initiative.

Dr. Knowlton’s honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the International Coral Reef Society’s Darwin Medal. You can follow her on Twitter/X at @SeaCitizens.

Eduardo S. Brondizio is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Directs the Center for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Landscapes, and Senior Fellow at the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University-Bloomington. Brondizio holds external professorship with the Environment and Society program (NEPAM) at the University of Campinas, Brazil. On the ground and at the regional level, Brondizio’s work has documented, examined, and responded to the social-environmental transformation and governance challenges of Amazônia. Brondizio’s research has contributed new methodologies for linking ethnographic research, household and community survey, institutional analysis, Indigenous and local knowledge, and geospatial analysis, contributing to multiscalar understandings of land-use processes such as deforestation and reforestation, agricultural intensification, migration and urbanization; value-chain of biodiversity products; population vulnerability to climate change; and the governance of complex landscape arrangements. He has contributed to numerous international initiatives on global environmental and climate change and sustainability.

Brondizio served as co-chair of the Global Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Brondizio is elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) and the United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and international member of the French Academy of Agriculture (AAF). Brondizio was awarded the 2023 Volvo Environmental Prize.

Professor Kate Jones is an award-winning ecologist who bridges disciplines to address global environmental challenges at the interface of ecology and human health. Her pioneering research uses statistical modelling and applied AI tools to understand the impacts of global land use and climate change on ecosystems, with a focus on monitoring biodiversity and forecasting zoonotic disease risks. Prof. Jones is Director of the People & Nature Lab at University College London, where she co-led the establishment of a new interdisciplinary campus, UCL East.

She has served as chair of The Bat Conservation Trust, advised the UK Climate Change Committee, and is a trustee for the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre and is widely published, with over 150 articles. Her work has been recognized with prestigious awards, including the Leverhulme Prize for Zoology and ZSL’s Marsh Award for Conservation Biology.

Edwin Muchapondwa is a Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a Research Fellow of the Environment for Development (EfD) Initiative. He also serves on the EfD Advisory Board and chairs the EfD quality assurance panel. He is a member of the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) Expert Working Group on Natural Capital. His research focuses on biodiversity conservation, community-based natural resource management, energy, and climate change. A key area of his work explores the economic interactions between protected natural areas and adjacent communities, demonstrating that enhanced nature protection correlates with improved human welfare.

Edwin advocates for strategies that further support nature conservation from an economic perspective. His work has been published in leading journals such as Ecological Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Natural Resource Modeling, and World Development.

Associate Professor Johanna Nalau is an award-winning climate adaptation scientist who thrives on finding clues how humans can better see into the future and adapt. Her research focuses on understanding climate adaptation heuristics and the role these play in adaptation decision- and policy-making processes globally and in Australia. 

A/Prof Nalau is Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment report in Working Group II, Co-chair of the Science Committee and Working Group on Global Goal on Adaptation in the World Adaptation Science Program at United Nations and leads the Adaptation Science Research Theme at Cities Research Institute, Griffith University. She was recently awarded the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Award 2023 for Emerging Leadership for her work on climate adaptation. She is passionate about the role of innovation, imagination and foresight in enabling better futures.

Julian Olden is the Worthington Endowed Professor in Fisheries Management in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington. Broadly motivated by a future where people recognize and respect the diverse values provided by functioning freshwater ecosystems, Julian seeks to integrate science-based approaches with on-the-ground management and conservation decisions.

His scholarly research includes over 350 peer-reviewed publications on wide-ranging topics associated with hydropower dams, ecohydrology, invasive species, climate change, noise pollution, conservation technology, and citizen science. Julian also actively engages in science communication and believes that uncensored discussions are essential to meet the environmental challenges of the future and to strengthen the modern conservation movement.

Julian received the Early Career Conservationist Award from the Society for Conservation Biology (2010), was an Ecological Society of America Early Career (2013) and Career (2022) Fellow, Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow (2015), American Fisheries Society Fellow (2020), and NZ University of Canterbury Erskine Fellow (2024), and a Web of Science Most Highly Cited Researcher (2018-present).

William Pan, DrPH MS MPH, is the Elizabeth Brooks Reid and Whitelaw Reid Professor of Population Studies and Global Environmental Health at Duke University. He received his DrPH in biostatistics from UNC-Chapel Hill, with additional training in spatial epidemiology, demography and disease ecology. His research focuses on understanding how coupled human-environment changes impact health, which includes studying how drivers of land use change, such as gold mining, logging, agricultural development, and road construction, affect human and environmental health risks such as vector-borne and non-communicable diseases, chemical exposures, and malnutrition. He has experience leading large, multidisciplinary international teams focusing on national and local research translation.  He serves on several Scientific Advisory Boards, including Malaria No More, Forecasting Healthy Futures, and the Technical Advisory Group for TRIPARTITE to develop standardized One Health Field Competencies, and he leads the recently launched Amazon Research Consortium for Climate Change and One Health.

James Randerson studies the global carbon cycle and ecosystem responses to climate change. Using satellite imagery, his lab explores how regional and global patterns of wildfires are changing in response to climate warming and land use change. He uses field observations to constrain the magnitude and composition of fire emissions and atmospheric models to understand fire impacts on atmospheric chemistry, climate, and human health. Randerson received a B.S. in chemistry and a Ph.D. in biological sciences from Stanford University. He conducted postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley and the University of Alaska before joining the faculty at Caltech.

In 2003, Randerson moved to UC Irvine, where he now holds the position of Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone Professor of Earth System Science. He received the James B. Macelwane Medal and the Piers J. Sellers Global Environmental Change Mid-Career Award from the American Geophysical Union. Randerson was co-chair of the biogeochemistry working group of the Community Earth System Model (2003-2017) and a member of the Biological and Environmental Research Federal Advisory Committee for the U.S. Dept. of Energy Office of Science (2011-2021). He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Kyle Whyte is a faculty member at the University of Michigan. His research addresses environmental justice, focusing on moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations, and problems of Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the anthropocene. He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.  

Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf is a Professor of Computer Science Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the Ohio State University, where she is also the Director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute. She is leading the NSF-funded Imageomics Institute and the NSF-NSERC cofunded AI and Biodiversity Change (ABC) Global Climate Center.

Berger-Wolf is a member of the US National Academies Board on Life Sciences, US National Committee for the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), and the Advisory Committee for the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) Biodiversity and AI working group.

She is also the co-founder of the AI for conservation non-profit Wild Me (now part of Conservation X Labs), home of the Wildbook project, which has been chosen by UNSECO as one of the 100 AI projects worldwide supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

John Poulsen is the Global Director of Science Capacity at The Nature Conservancy. In this position, he leads a Global Science program that provides learning support and resources to business units worldwide with the goal of advancing science that contributes to conservation. John was previously a professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University for more than 11 years. He is an ecologist with more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and more than two decades of experience working to support conservation, particularly in the Central African region. John works in partnership with governmental agencies, industry and local communities on issues such as the effects of wildlife loss on human welfare and ecosystem structure, the environmental and human drivers of forest carbon stocks and wildlife populations, sustainable logging and hunting practices, and the effects of anthropogenic activities on ecological processes.

John has a great deal of experience in leading conservation programs. He directed conservation projects for seven years in the Republic of Congo for the Wildlife Conservation Society. He also worked with USAID and the US Forest Service as an advisor to the Gabonese government on climate change policy, one aspect of which involved establishing the nation’s forest inventory. John is dedicated to building scientific capacity, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and co-created a forest conservation master’s program—the Forest Research Ecology and Stewardship Training—for Central Africans. John received his master’s degree from San Francisco State University and holds a PhD from the University of Florida.