Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D.

Research

Jane Lubchenco is a distinguished professor at Oregon State University and a U.S. science envoy for the ocean at the State Department. In 2019, Lubchenco was appointed to serve as an Academician to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, she also and received the inaugural Tethys Award from the Ocean Visions institute. She served as undersecretary of commerce and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 2009 to 2013. Lubchenco was the first woman and the first marine ecologist to lead NOAA. Lubchenco’s Pew fellowship supported three major efforts focusing on the interface among ecology, environmental science, public policy, and the media. These efforts included the Sustainable Biosphere Project, her involvement in Global Biodiversity Assessment of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, initially known as Spring Green. She was one of the four coordinators of the two largest sections of UNEP’s Global Biodiversity Assessment, an initiative patterned after the successful international climate and ozone assessments. It provides an international assessment of the status of biodiversity, including patterns, trends, causes, and consequences. Lubchenco had primary responsibility for the marine components. Her Spring Green project, which provides training for academic environmental scientists who wish to be more effective with outreach to media and policymakers, evolved from annual Pew Fellows meetings. Lubchenco developed the concept and design of the project, which launched in 1998 as the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program.

To learn more about Lubchenco, visit her bio online: http://gordon.science.oregonstate.edu/lubchenco.