Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., is the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Her scientific expertise includes oceans, climate change and interactions between the environment and human welfare. She has studied marine ecosystems around the world and championed the importance of science and its relevance to policymaking and human well-being. A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Council for Science and the Ecological Society of America, Lubchenco served 10 years on the National Science Board (the board of directors for the National Science Foundation). From 1999 to 2009, she led the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, a four-university, interdisciplinary team of scientists investigating the large marine ecosystem along the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California. She has a special interest in Arctic ecosystems, with recent work in Svalbard, Greenland, and the Alaskan arctic. Lubchenco has provided scientific input to multiple U.S. policymakers on climate, fisheries, marine ecosystems and biodiversity. She served on the first National Academy of Sciences study on "Policy Implications of Global Warming," providing advice to the George H.W. Bush administration and Congress. In 1997 she briefed the Clinton administration on climate change. She received a B.A. in biology from Colorado College, an M.S. in zoology from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in ecology from Harvard University.
This Shell Distinguished Lecture Series event is co-hosted by the Science and Technology Policy Program of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and Rice University"s Wiess School of Natural Sciences and George R. Brown School of Engineering.
Sponsorship for this event was generously provided by the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation.
Related Events
