The Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholars Program was created in July 2002 with a generous gift by Edward P. Bass to YIBS.
The Bass Visiting Environmental Scholars Program brings premier scholars in any field dealing with the study of the environment, past or present, to Yale for an extended period of time. The scholars are nominated through the YIBS Faculty Affiliates, and while in residence at Yale, scholars present seminars, interact with faculty, students and research groups, and participate in the life of one or more academic units.
Dr. Rita Colwell was named as the inaugural Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholar in the spring of 2005, and YIBS has hosted upwards of 40 scholars since then.
Current Bass Environmental Scholars
Stanley AmbroseResearch Description: Stanley Ambrose is a paleoanthropologist conducting research on early hominid origins and evolution in Africa, and modern human origins, adaptations and expansions out of Africa during the last three ice ages. He uses archaeological and geological methods, and environmental isotope biogeochemistry of modern and fossil plants, animals, and soils to reconstruct past habitats, climates, diets, residential life histories, and human social interaction networks. Fossil tooth enamel and ostrich eggshell are highly resistant to alteration over time. Their carbon and oxygen isotope ratios preserve environmental information with high fidelity. He is developing new methods to improve reliability of stable and radiometric dating analyses. His ultimate goal is to understand the evolution of human cooperation in variable ice age and stable interglacial environments. Appointment Date: Spring 2024 |
Timothy LyonsResearch Description: Timothy Lyons (Yale, PhD, 1992), a distinguished professor at the University of California, Riverside, will work with Yale colleague Noah Planavsky in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences to study the many environmental and ecological challenges linked to shrinking lakes in arid regions around the world. In the face of intense droughts, increased evaporation with warming temperatures, and greater demand on water resources, lakes throughout the world are drying, exposing surrounding regions to diverse consequences that include threats to human health from increased dust loads. Initially focusing on the largest lake in California, the Salton Sea, the two biogeochemists will use traditional and novel readily extrapolatable methods to explore the cycling of potentially toxic metals, microbial pathogens, and pesticides/herbicides and the pathways by which these contaminants once airborne can impact communities and ecologies near and far. Appointment Date: Spring 2024 |
Past Bass Environmental Scholars
Thomas Bianchi (Professor of Geology, Jon L. and Beverly A. Thompson Endowed Chair of Geological Sciences, University of Florida) | Fall 2023 |
Carlos Navas (Professor of Physiology, Physiology Department of the Biosciences Institute, University of São Paulo) | Fall 2023 |
Erin Saupe (Associate Professor of Palaeobiology, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford) | Spring 2023 |
Greg Wilson Mantilla (Professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington) | Spring 2023 |
Cheryl Knott (Professor, Department of Anthropology, Boston University) | Fall 2022 |
Rees Kassen (Professor, University of Ottawa) | Fall 2022 |
José Paruelo (Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria (Uruguay) & IFEVA-Facultad de Agronomía. Universidad de Buenos Aires and CONICET) | Spring 2022 |
Caroline Strömberg (Estella B. Leopold Professor in Biology and Curator of Paleobotany, University of Washington) | Spring 2022 |
Steven Hamburg (Chief Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund) | Fall 2020 |
John Damuth (Research Biologist of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, Univeristy of California, Santa Barbara) |
Fall 2019 & Spring 2020 |
Susan Mazer (Professor of Ecology and Evolution
University of California, Santa Barbara; President, California Botanical Society) |
Fall 2019 & Spring 2020 |
Michael Hochberg (Research Director, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Montpellier, France) |
Fall 2019 |
P. David Polly (American paleontologist and the Robert R. Shrock Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Indiana University) | Spring 2019 |
Mark Swilling (Distinguished Professor and Programme Coordinator: Sustainable Development in the School of Public Leadership, University of Stellenbosch and Academic Director of the Sustainability Institute) | Spring 2018 |
Nancy Knowlton (coral reef biologist and is the Smithsonian Institution’s Sant Chair for Marine Science) | Fall 2017 |
Robert Wallace (Director, Greater Madidi - Tambopata Landscape & Amazon Landscape Conservation Expert Wildlife Conservation Society) | Spring 2017 |
Roy Plotnick (Professor Invertebrate Paleontology, Landscape Ecology, Statistical Methods) | Spring 2017 |
Aaron Ellison (ecologist & environmental conservationist) | Spring 2016 |
Ana Magdalena Hurtado (evolutionary anthropologist) | Spring 2016 |
Julia Marton-Lefèvre (environmentalist & academic) | Spring 2016 |
Grae Worster (fluid dynamicist) | Spring 2016 |
Bill Weber (wildlife conservationist) | Spring 2014 |
Jeremy Jackson (marine ecologist & paleontologist) | Spring 2014 |
Jonathan Bloch (paleontologist) | Spring 2013 |
Hugh Possingham (conservation biologist) | Spring 2013 |
Carlos Jaramillo (paleobiologist & geologist) | Fall 2012 & Spring 2013 |
Arne Mooers (evolutionary biologist) | Spring 2012 |
Scott Wing (biologist) | Spring 2012 |
Daniel Lashof (climate policy expert) | Fall 2011 |
Dame Alison Richard (anthropologist & conservationist) | Summer & Fall 2011 |
Kevin de Queiroz (zoologist) | Spring 2011 |
Link Olson (biologist) | Spring 2011 |
Paul Richards (anthropologist) | Spring 2011 |
Rosemary & Peter Grant (evolutionary biologists) | Fall 2010 |
David Fox (evolutionary paleoecologist) | Spring 2010 |
Inez Fung (atmospheric scientist) | Fall 2009 & Spring 2010 |
Michael Benton (paleontologist) | Spring 2009 |
David Beerling (geobiologist) | Fall 2008 & Spring 2009 |
Christian Koerner (botanist) | Spring 2007 |
William Cronon (environmental historian) | Spring 2007 |
Michael Teitelbaum (demographer) | Fall 2006 & Spring 2007 |
Stephen Sparks (volcanologist) | Fall 2006 & Spring 2007 |
Dorceta Taylor (sociologist) | Fall 2005 |
Rita Colwell (environmental microbiologist) | Spring 2005 |