Scientists

Content Developers // Featured Scientists // Professional Development Guide Content Developers

Content Developers

The content for each unit was developed under the leadership of a leading science academic noted for his or her work in environmental science.

David E. Bloom (Unit 5)

David Bloom is Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography and chairman of the Department of Population and International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Read full bio

Charles F. Harvey (Unit 8)

Charles Harvey is the Doherty Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a hydrologist concerned with groundwater and the fate and transport of chemicals in the subsurface environment. Read full bio

Noel Michele "Missy" Holbrook (Unit 7)

Missy Holbrook is professor of biology and the Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Read full bio

John P. Holdren (Unit 10)

John Holdren is Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School, as well as professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Daniel J. Jacob (Unit 11)

Daniel Jacob is a professor of atmospheric chemistry and environmental engineering at Harvard University. The goal of his research is to understand the chemical composition of the atmosphere, its perturbation by human activity, and the implications for climate change and life on Earth. Read full bio

James J. McCarthy (Unit 3)

James McCarthy is an Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography and director of Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. He holds faculty appointments in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and is the head tutor for degrees in environmental science and public policy. Read full bio

Paul R. Moorcroft (Unit 4)

Paul Moorcroft is a professor of biology at Harvard University who specializes in terrestrial ecosystem dynamics. His research investigates how ecological processes affect the structure, composition, and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems at regional to global scales. Read full bio

Anne Pringle (Unit 9)

Anne Pringle is an assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University and an associate member at the Broad Institute. Her research explores evolution as it happens in wild populations of fungi. Read full bio

Daniel P. Schrag (Course Content Developer; Units 1, 12, 13)

Daniel Schrag is professor of Earth and planetary sciences and environmental engineering at Harvard University and the director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Read full bio

John H. Shaw (Unit 10)

John Shaw is the Harry C. Dudley Professor of Structural and Economic Geology and Chair of the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, Professor Shaw worked as an exploration and production geologist in the petroleum industry. Read full bio

John D. Spengler (Unit 6)

John Spengler is the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. His research activities are directed at the assessment of population exposures to environmental contaminants that occur in homes, offices, schools, and during transit as well as in the outdoor environment. Read full bio

Steven C. Wofsy (Unit 2)

Steven Wofsy is professor of atmospheric and environmental science at Harvard University. His work focuses on the chemical composition of the atmosphere, both regionally and globally, and is motivated by the need for scientific information and analysis to make wise decisions on the future development of the world's resources. Read full bio

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Featured Scientists

Each of the thirteen videos in The Habitable Planet features interviews with two expert scientists in the field. Transcripts have been edited for clarity.

Andy Aden (Unit 10)

Andy Aden is a senior chemical engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Since 1999, Andy has specialized in process design, simulation, and economic analysis of biomass conversion and biofuels processes. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Deborah L. Balk (Unit 5)

Deborah Balk is associate professor at the Baruch School of Public Affairs and acting associate director of the Institute for Demographic Research at the City University of New York. Until Fall 2006, she was research scientist at the Center for International Earth Science Information of Network at Columbia University. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Mark A. Cane (Unit 3)

Mark Cane is the G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University, where he also holds joint appointment in the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and serves as a member of IRI's International Science and Technical Advisory Committee. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Sallie W. "Penny" Chisholm (Unit 3)

Penny Chisholm is Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Robert H. Crabtree (Unit 4)

Robert Crabtree is the founder and chief scientist of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center—a unique, private, non-profit scientific organization that specializes in long-term, large-scale, collaborative ecological study in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Stuart J. Davies (Unit 4)

Stuart Davies is the director of the Center for Tropical Forest Science at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. This program coordinates a global network of 17 large-scale tropical forest research plots in 13 countries. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Kerry A. Emanuel (Unit 2)

Kerry Emanuel is professor of atmospheric science in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research group is investigating possible links between global climate and tropical cyclone activity, focusing on the possible role of tropical cyclones in driving oceanic heat fluxes. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Chris Field (Unit 12)

Chris Field is the founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, professor of biological sciences at Stanford University, and faculty director of Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Wendy Graham (Unit 8)

Wendy D. Graham gained her Ph.D. in civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently the Carl S. Swisher Chair in Water Resources and Water Institute Director at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Neeraj Gupta (Unit 10)

Neeraj Gupta is a geologist at Battelle Memorial Institute. His educational and technical background includes hydrogeology, geology, and geochemistry. Since 1996, he has been one of the leaders in Battelle's efforts to evaluate the feasibility of geologic storage of carbon dioxide in sedimentary formations. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Paul F. Hoffman (Unit 1)

Paul Hoffman is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Howard Hu (Unit 6)

Howard Hu is adjunct professor at Harvard School of Public Health and chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and professor of environmental health, epidemiology, and medicine at the University of Michigan Schools of Public Health and Medicine. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Jeremy B. C. Jackson (Unit 9)

Jeremy Jackson is the William E. and Mary B. Ritter Professor of Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, and a staff scientist at the Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archaeology at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Peter E. Kenmore (Unit 7)

Peter Kenmore is an agricultural entomologist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN agency that spearheads international efforts to defeat hunger around the world. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Andrew H. Knoll (Unit 1)

Andrew Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is broadly interested in the evolution of life, the evolution of Earth surface environments, and the relationships between the two. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Charles E. Kolb (Unit 11)

Charles Kolb is the president and chief executive officer of Aerodyne Research, Inc. where his personal areas of research have included atmospheric and environmental chemistry, combustion chemistry, materials chemistry, and the chemical physics of rocket and aircraft exhaust plumes. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

William F. Laurance (Unit 9)

William Laurance is a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project in Brazilian Amazonia. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Thomas Maddock (Unit 8)

Thomas Maddock is the head of the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Arizona, the former deputy director of the Science and Technology Center for Sustainability of Semi-arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA), and the co-director of the University of Arizona Research Laboratory for Riparian Studies. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Pamela A. Matson (Unit 7)

Pamela Matson is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Environmental Studies in the School of Earth Sciences and the Woods Institute for Environment at Stanford University. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Luisa T. Molina (Unit 11)

Luisa Molina is currently the president of the Molina Center for Strategic Studies in Energy and the Environment (MCE2) in La Jolla, California and principal research scientist at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Daniel Pauly (Unit 13)

Daniel Pauly is professor and director of Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Dr. Pauly's scientific output, mainly dedicated to the management of fisheries, and to ecosystem modeling, comprises numerous contributions to peer-reviewed journals, authored and edited books, reports and popular articles, and the concepts, methods and software he (co-) developed are in use throughout the world. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Martha Farnsworth Riche (Unit 5)

The Honorable Martha Farnsworth Riche served as director of the U.S. Census Bureau between 1994 and 1998. Through Farnsworth Riche Associates, Dr. Riche consults, writes, and lectures on demographic changes and their effects on policies, programs, and products. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Pieter P. Tans (Unit 2)

Pieter Tans is senior scientist at the Earth System Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado. He has studied the global carbon cycle for several decades, starting with his Ph.D. dissertation research in the Netherlands, and has published close to 140 scientific papers on the subject. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Lonnie G. Thompson (Unit 12)

Lonnie Thompson, a distinguished professor of geologic sciences at The Ohio State University and senior research scientist with the Byrd Polar Research Center, has become one of the world's authorities on the melting of glaciers and ice caps as a warning of rising global temperatures. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Robin M. Whyatt (Unit 6)

Robin Whyatt is associate professor of clinical environmental health sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and is deputy director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

E.O. Wilson (Unit 13)

Edward O. Wilson is University Research Professor Emeritus and Honorary Curator of Entomology at Harvard University. He is one of the world's leading authorities on ants. Read full bio // Read interview transcript

Professional Development Guide Content Developers

The Professional Development Guide was produced under the leadership of prominent environmental science teacher educators.

Michael J. Brody

Michael Brody is an associate professor of education in the College of Education, Health and Human Development at Montana State University, where he teaches courses in environment, science education, and educational research at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Read full bio

Warren C. Tomkiewicz

Warren Tomkiewicz is professor of Earth system science and chair of the Environmental Science and Policy Department at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire. He teaches undergraduate courses in Earth system science, environmental science, and ocean studies, and graduate courses in science education. Read full bio

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