Thomas Lovejoy
| Thomas Lovejoy | |
|---|---|
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| Fields | Biology |
| Institutions | George Mason University, World Bank, Heinz Center for Science Economics and the Environment, United Nations Foundation |
| Notable awards |
Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2001), BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2008), Blue Planet Prize (2012) |
Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2001), BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2008),
Thomas E. Lovejoy, "the Godfather of Biodiversity," is a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and University Professor in the Environmental Science and Policy department at George Mason University. Lovejoy was the World Bank’s Chief Biodiversity Advisor and the Lead Specialist for Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations Foundation. In 2008, he also was the first Biodiversity Chair of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment to 2013. Previously he served as President of the Heinz Center since May 2002. Lovejoy introduced the term biological diversity to the scientific community in 1980. He currently is Chair of the Scientific Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) for the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the multibillion-dollar funding mechanism for developing countries in support of their obligations under international environmental conventions.
Lovejoy attended Millbrook School where he worked at The Trevor Zoo, under zoo founder Frank Trevor and his wife Janet. "The first three weeks were the key, and that's what flipped my switch in life and Biology. I was not prepared for the impact the Trevors world actually have on me in the classroom. And it was like my first three weeks and that was it. I'm going to be a biologist." He graduated from Millbrook in 1959.
Lovejoy, a tropical biologist and conservation biologist, has worked in the Amazon of Brazil since 1965. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in biology from Yale University.
From 1973 to 1987 he directed the conservation program at World Wildlife Fund-U.S., and from 1987 to 1998 he served as Assistant Secretary for Environmental and External Affairs for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and in 1994 became Counselor to the Secretary for Biodiversity and Environmental Affairs. From 1999 to 2002, he served as chief biodiversity adviser to the President of the World Bank. In 2010 and 2011, he served as Chair of the Independent Advisory Group on Sustainability for the Inter-American Development Bank. He is Senior Adviser to the President of the United Nations Foundation, chair of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, and is past president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, past chairman of the United States Man and Biosphere Program, and past president of the Society for Conservation Biology.
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