Keynote: Gary E. Machlis

Mon. 10:30-11:15 a.m., Interlocken A/B

Dr. Gary E. Machlis is Science Advisor to the Director, National Park Service (NPS), and Professor of Conservation at the University of Idaho. He is the first scientist appointed to this position with the NPS, and advises the director on a range of science policy issues and programs. Machlis has served as Interim Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Idaho, and been a visiting professor at Nanjing Technological College in China and at Yale University.

Machlis received his bachelor's and master’s degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his PhD in human ecology from Yale. His most recent book is "Warfare Ecology: A New Synthesis for Peace and Security". His research has been published in journals as varied as Bioscience, Climatic Change, Conservation Biology, Society and Natural Resources, and Science.

Machlis has been a leader in collaborative higher education and science, and serves as a special advisor to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) National Committee on Opportunities for Women and Minorities in Science. He was instrumental in the development of the nation's Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units Network, which includes 14 federal agencies and more than 200 universities, and served as its National Coordinator from 1998-2006.

His current research activities include advancing the sustainability sciences, the environmental impacts of warfare and its resulting humanitarian crises, and the use of science during crises. His has been engaged in science applied to the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 oil spill, and advancing science capacity in Haiti after its devastating earthquake. Machlis was the lead author of the AAAS report, Science For Haiti: A Report on Advancing Haitian Science and Science Education Capacity. In 2012, he was appointed by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to co-lead the Department's Strategic Sciences Group, which has responsibility to conduct interdisciplinary science-based assessments during national environmental crises. Recently, the Strategic Sciences Group was deployed to work on Hurricane Sandy scenarios in support of the federal Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force.

In 2010, Machlis was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.