Pamela A. Matson

Stanford University


Primary Section: 63, Environmental Sciences and Ecology
Secondary Section: 64, Human Environmental Sciences
Membership Type:
Member (elected 1994)

Biosketch

Pamela A. Matson, Member of the National Academy of Sciences, is an interdisciplinary sustainability scientist, academic leader, and organizational strategist. Dean emerita of Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, she is the Goldman Professor of Environmental Studies and Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment, and leads the graduate program on Sustainability Science and Practice. Dr. Matson's research addresses a range of environment and sustainability issues, including sustainability of agricultural systems, vulnerability and resilience of particular people and places to climate change, and characteristics of science that can contribute to sustainability transitions at scale. Her recent publications (among around 200) include Seeds of Sustainability: Lessons from the Birthplace of the Green Revolution (2012) and Pursuing Sustainability (2016). She has served on the National Academy's Board on Global Change, Committee on America's Climate Choices, Board on Sustainable Development, and currently, on the advisory committee for the Division on Earth and Life Studies. She was the founding chair of the National Academies' Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability, founding editor for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, vice chair of the science steering committee for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program, a lead author for the IPCC, and past President of the Ecological Society of America. She is currently the board chair of the World Wildlife Fund, and has served on the boards of the Climate Works Foundation, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the California Academy of Sciences as well as a number of university advisory boards. Dr. Matson is also a member the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received a MacArthur Fellowship, among other awards and recognitions. She received degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Indiana University, and Oregon State University and honorary degrees from Princeton University, McGill University and Arizona State University.

Research Interests

Global change research; interactions of policy and environmental science; human population growth; sustainable agriculture. Forest ecology, agroecology, biogeochemical cycles in disturbed forests and agricultural systems, effects of tropical land use change on biogeochemical cycling and trace gas emissions, global atmospheric change, biosphere-atmosphere exchange.

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