The Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies is pleased to announce that Jeremy Jackson and Bill Weber are serving as Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholars during the spring 2014 semester.
Jeremy Jackson is serving as the Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholar in the Yale Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from January 8th to May 2nd, 2014. He is a marine ecologist, paleontologist and Emeritus Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California as well as a Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama. Professor Jackson has published over 150 scientific publications – 18 of which are in the journal Science – and has written seven books. His research includes the long-term impacts of human activities on the oceans and the ecological and evolutionary consequences of the gradual formation of the Isthmus of Panama. He co-founded the Panama Paleontology Project in 1986, an international group of some 30 scientists, to help support his isthmian research. He has also worked extensively on the ecology of coral reef communities and the tempo and mode of speciation in the sea, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and received the Secretary’s Gold Medal for Exceptional Service of the Smithsonian Institution in 1997 and the UCSD Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Engineering in 2002. His work on overfishing was chosen by Discover magazine as the outstanding environmental achievement of 2001. He has served on committees and boards of the World Wildlife Fund US, the National Research Council, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and the Science Commission of the Smithsonian Institution.
Dr. Bill Weber is serving as the Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholar in the Yale Department of Anthropology from January 1, 2014 to May 31, 2014. He is a Senior Conservationist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and Co-Founder of the Mountain Gorilla Project in Rwanda. Dr. Weber has worked for many years in the field of international conservation, lived in Africa for nine years, and was co-founder of the highly successful Mountain Gorilla Project in Rwanda where he continues to advise the national park service on several projects. His field experience ranges from central and eastern Africa to the Alaskan Arctic. He is a recognized expert in human aspects of conservation and a pioneer of the modern ecotourism movement.
Dr. Weber has authored dozens of articles on subjects ranging from community development to carnivore conservation and his work has been featured in multiple films in the US and Europe. His experiences in Rwanda are described in the book, In the Kingdom of Gorillas, which he wrote with his wife, Dr. Amy Vedder. Their book was featured by BBC Wildlife in 2003 as one of “the most influential books from the past 40 years of wildlife publishing” and selected as one of the “Best Science and Nature books” by National Public Radio and the Toronto Globe and Mail in 2001.
