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Pamela Matson

Stanford University
Chester Naramore Dean, School of Earth Sciences
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Environmental Studies
Burton and Deedee McMurtry University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Senior Fellow, Center for Environmental Science and Policy and
Stanford Institute for the Environment

Dr. Matson is an interdisciplinary Earth scientist who studies chemical interactions among soils, water, and atmosphere. As a leader among scientists working to reconcile the needs of people and the environment in the 21st century, she works with multidisciplinary teams of researchers and decision makers to develop land management approaches that make sense economically and environmentally. Working mostly in the tropics, she and her colleagues have identified the negative consequences of deforestation and intensive agriculture for the global and local atmosphere and water systems, and are working to develop new approaches that reduce those impacts while maintaining human livelihoods. Dr. Matson is the author of over 150 scientific publications and four books. A MacArthur Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, she is the founding co-chair of the National Academies Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability; founding editor-in-chief of the Annual Review of Environment and Resources; past president of the Ecological Society of America; and serves on the boards of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and the National Parks Conservation Association. In 2005, she received the Stanford Alumni Association’s Richard W. Lyman award for exceptional volunteer service to Stanford. She joined the Stanford faculty in 1997, following positions as professor at University of California, Berkeley and research scientist at NASA. She earned her B.S. at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, her M.S. at Indiana University, and her Ph.D. at Oregon State University.