International Science Advisory Council

The International Scientific Advisory Council (ISAC) is a body of internationally leading researchers providing strategic advice and guidance on the scientific development and direction of the Stockholm Resilience Centre

The composition and membership of the council is formally decided by the SRC board. Members are committed to a three-year period with possibility for re-election. Current members are:

Elena Bennett (Chair)

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

Dr. Bennett is an associate professor at McGill School of Environment. Her research revolves around interests in understanding and managing ecosystem services. She is interested in how the types of ecosystem services interact across the landscape and how humans can manage landscapes to provide multiple ecosystems services. Her research also looks at the trade-offs between agricultural production and water quality and learning how people change Phosphorus (P) cycles through farming, trade, and other activities, and how this, in turn impacts water quality.

In-depth:
Elena Bennett reflects on what makes the Stockholm Resilience Centre unique and what it will take to stay that way

Stephen Carpenter

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

Professor Stephen Carpenter is Director Emeritus of the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His limnological research focuses on the interaction of biogeochemistry and food web processes in lakes. He is especially interested in prediction of lake characteristics from land-water interactions and food web processes, including human effects such as fishing and introduction of exotic species.

In-depth:
As the centre continues to its strategy for future research, Steve Carpenter provides a crucial bit of history and scientific legacy

Deliang Chen

UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG

Deliang Chen is a meteorologist by education and renowned climate researcher. He also has extensive experiences with science for policy. He is an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS), the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the World Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg, as well as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He has served on numerous international and national committees and boards, as well as advised various governmental, intergovernmental, and international non-governmental bodies including funding agencies. Recent examples include chair of the Nomination Committee of the Stockholm Water Prize and Chair of the Earth Science Division of the RSAS.

Jonas Ebbesson

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY

Ebbesson is a professor in environmental law and a former dean of the faculty of law at Stockholm University. He is also a former member of the Stockholm Resilience Centre board and a long-time research affiliate to the centre.

In-depth:
What’s law got to do with it? Quite a lot if you ask Jonas Ebbesson, professor of environmental law and member of Stockholm Resilience Centre’s International Science Advisory Board

Frank Geels

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

Frank Geels is professor of System Innovation and Sustainability at the University of Manchester. He is a world-leading scholar on socio-technical transitions and has published several books and more than sixty peer- reviewed articles in this area, many of which are highly cited.

Danica Kragic

ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, SWEDEN

Danica Kragic is a professor at the School of Computer Science and Communication at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH. She received MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Rijeka, Croatia in 1995 and PhD in Computer Science from KTH in 2001. She has been a visiting researcher at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University and INRIA Rennes. She is the Director of the Centre for Autonomous Systems. Danica received the 2007 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Academic Career Award. She is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and Young Academy of Sweden.

Eric Lambin

UNIVERSITÉ CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN & STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Eric Lambin, a geographer and environmental scientist, divides his time between the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) and Stanford University, were he occupies the Ishiyama Provostial Professorship at the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and the Woods Institute for the Environment. His research tries to better understand causes and impacts of land use changes in different parts of the world.

Simon Levin

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Simon Asher Levin is a James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution and the Director of the Center for BioComplexity. He specializes in using mathematical modeling and empirical studies in the understanding of macroscopic patterns of ecosystems and biological diversities. Simon Levin is also a former member of the Stockholm Resilience Centre board.

Jane Lubchenco

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Lubchenco is a marine biologist and environmental scientist who has deep experience in the worlds of science, academia, public engagement and government. In 2021 she was appointed Deputy Director for Climate and Environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology. She served as the U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and as part of President Barack Obama’s Science Team from 2009-2013. From 2014-2016, she was the first U.S. State Department Science Envoy for the Ocean, serving as a science diplomat to China, Indonesia, South Africa, Mauritius and the Seychelles.

Stephen Polasky

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Stephen Polasky is a Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the Department of Applied Economics. His research focuses on issues at the intersection of ecology and economics and include the impacts of land use and land management on the provision and value of ecosystem services and natural capital, biodiversity conservation, sustainability, environmental regulation, renewable energy, and common property resources.

Marten Scheffer

WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY

Marten Scheffer is interested in unravelling the mechanisms that determine the stability and resilience of complex systems. Although much of his work has focused on ecosystems, he also worked with a range of scientists from other disciplines to address issues of stability and shifts in natural and social systems. Examples include the feedback between atmospheric carbon and the earth temperature, the collapse of ancient societies, inertia and shifts in public opinion.

Elizabeth Selig

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Elizabeth Selig is the deputy director of Center for Ocean Solutions. Her work focuses on analyzing how changes in ecosystem health will affect ecosystem services and human well-being, evaluating the success of management tools to effectively manage ocean resources, and developing integrated socio-ecological assessments of ocean health. She has more than ten years experience working with international organizations including Conservation International, where she was the Senior Director of Marine Science.

In-depth:
For Elizabeth Selig, making sure that research positively impacts society lies at the core of her work. Good thing, then, that she has become a member of the Centre’s new science advisory council

Rashid Sumaila

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Rashid Sumaila specializes in food security issues related to marine ecosystems; trade in fish and fisheries products, fisheries subsidies, illegal fishing; the economics of high and deep seas fisheries and marine governance; marine ecosystem valuation and modelling. He has extensive experience of interdisciplinary collaboration and is very active in the science, practice, policy interface collaborating with stakeholders from local to the highest international levels. Sumaila has been called upon to make presentation to the United Nations, to senior staff at the White House, and to other political and/or expert bodies around the world in dozens of countries and on all continents.

In-depth:
The centre’s international science advisory council welcomes Rashid Sumaila, one of the world’s most innovative oceans researchers

Elke Weber

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Elke Weber is a Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor at the Department of Psychology and Associate Director for Education at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Weber works at the intersection of psychology and economics, Weber is an expert on behavioral models of judgment and decision making under risk and uncertainty.

In-depth:
Elke Weber, a Princeton professor and member of the centre’s science advisory board, knows a thing or two about the human brain and what it takes to get people to act

Frances Westley

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

Frances Westley is the former chair of the Stockholm Resilience Centre board. She is a renowned scholar and consultant in the areas of social innovation, strategies for sustainable development, strategic change, visionary leadership and inter-organizational collaboration. At the University of Waterloo, she leads a research team dedicated to understanding social innovation, and has designed both graduate and undergraduate curricula in social innovation.

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