Diane Pataki

Dr. Diane E. Pataki is a Foundation Professor and Director of the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. She previously served as the Associate Vice President for Research and a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah, with an adjunct appointment in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning. She has also previously held positions as Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Science at the University of Utah. Prior to 2012, she was on the faculty of the University of California, Irvine with a joint appointment in the Department of Earth System Science and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. She was the founding Director of the UC Irvine Center for Environmental Biology and the Steele Burnand Anza Borrego Desert Research Center, a University of California Natural Reserve operated in collaboration with Anza Borrego Desert State Park. Dr. Pataki received a B.A. in environmental science at Barnard College and an M.S. and Ph.D. at the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment.

Her work is transdisciplinary and has spanned the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, coupled human-natural processes related to urban CO2 emissions, and the role of nature, greenspace, and forestry in urban sustainability. Dr. Pataki is a Fulbright Global Scholar, a James B. Macelwane Medalist, a Leopold Leadership Fellow, and a elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Ecological Society of America (ESA), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is the Chief Specialty Editor for the Urban Ecology section of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, and a member of the National Science Foundation Directorate Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education (NSF AC ERE). She has previously served as a Program Director in the NSF Division of Environmental Biology and a member of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Board of Scientific Counselors. She is also currently serving as Vice President for Science of the Ecological Society of America.