Kathryn S. Fuller Science for Nature Seminar Series

WWF’s Science for Nature Seminars provide a regular forum for the conservation community to learn, discuss, network and inspire. The series seeks to advance the discussion of cutting edge research relating to critical topics in international conservation by featuring distinguished scientists from across the globe.

Since its beginning in 2007, the Fuller Science for Nature Seminar Series has hosted over 50 scientists with diverse specialties and has attracted thousands of attendees from different sectors of the conservation community.

Seminars are free, open to the public, and held remotely via Zoom (registration is required to receive link to the event).

2023

Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Closing
Speakers: Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf, Professor and Director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute, Ohio State University, Dr. Dan Morris, Research Scientist, Google
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Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Decision Support
Speakers: Dr. Carlos Souza, Senior Research Associate, IMAZON, Jorn Dallinga, Forest Foresight Program Manager, WWF-NL
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Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Systems/Causality
Speaker: Lily Xu, PhD Student, Harvard University
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Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Data Integration
Speaker: Dr. Ferdinando Villa, Research Professor, Basque Centre for Climate Change
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Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Indigenous AI
Speakers: Michael Running Wolf, Indigenous AI, Mason Grimshaw, Earth Genome
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Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Sensor Integration
Speakers: Dr. Sara Beery, Incoming Assistant Professor, MIT EECS, Dr. Emmanuel Dufourq, AIMS Canadian Junior Research Chair in Climate Science, Dr. Wilfried Thuiller, Senior Research Scientist, CNRS
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2022

Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Ethics
Speakers: Dr. Renee Sieber, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, McGill University, Dr. Elizabeth Bondi-Kelly, Postdoctoral Fellow, MIT
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Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Prediction
Speaker: Dr. Fei Fang, Assistant Professor at the Software and Societal Systems Department, Carnegie Mellon University
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Fuller Seminar: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSERVATION: Where We Are Now
Speaker: Bistra Dilkina, Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Southern California
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Fuller Seminar: MAKING BETTER DECISIONS: Transforming Culture for an Evidence-Informed Future
Speakers: Dr. Melanie Goodchild, Senior Indigenous Research Fellow And Associate, University of Waterloo, Dr. Louise Glew, Director of Evidence and Learning, Sequoia Climate Foundation, Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw, Senior Scientist, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Dr. Sam Cheng, Director, Conservation Evidence, World Wildlife Fund
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Fuller Seminar: MAKING BETTER DECISIONS: Dancing With Evidence
Speakers: Dr. Paul Cairney, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, Division of History, Heritage, and Politics, University of Stirling, Dr. Darren Ranco, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of Native American Programs, University of Maine, Dr. Brent Loken, Global Food Lead Scientist, World Wildlife Fund, Dr. Gretchen Goldman, Asst. Director for Environmental Science, Engineering, Policy & Justice, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President
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Fuller Seminar: MAKING BETTER DECISIONS: Challenge Assumptions, Reckon With Failure
Speakers: Dr. Allison Catalano, Evaluation & Learning Manager, Sequoia Climate Fund, Dr. Yuta Masuda, Senior Sustainable Development and Behavioral Scientist, The Nature Conservancy, Dr. Madeleine McKinnon, Senior Officer for Learning and Impact, Philanthropic Services Hillspire
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Fuller Seminar: MAKING BETTER DECISIONS: Advancing evidence-informed decision-making
Speakers: Prof. Ruth Stewart, Director, Africa Center for Evidence, Dr. Vish Viswanath, Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Dr. Lauren Supplee, Senior Program Officer, William T. Grant Foundation, Dr. Angela Bednarek, Project Director, Evidence Project, Pew Charitable Trusts
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Fuller Seminar: MAKING BETTER DECISIONS: What Counts as Evidence in Conservation?
Speakers: Dr. Morena Mills, Senior Lecturer In Conservation Science In The Department Of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Dr. Darren Ranco, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of Native American Programs, University of Maine, Dr. Chris Sandbrook, Associate Professor in Geography, University of Cambridge
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2021

Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: Can Everybody Win?
Speaker: Jessica Fanzo, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food Policy and Ethics at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University
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Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: Food from the Ocean
Speaker: Kristian Teleki, Director of the Sustainable Ocean Initiative at WRI, Head of the Friends of Ocean Action for the World Economic Forum
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Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: Leading the Way
Speaker: Sunita Narain, Director General of the Center for Science and Environment, Editor of the biweekly magazine, Down To Earth
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Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: What Lurks Beneath
Speaker: Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director at Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition
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Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: Grazed and Confused
Speaker: Tara Garnett, Researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, Fellow of the Oxford Martin School
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2020

Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: The State of the World’s Nutrition
Speaker: Dr. Renata Micha, Research Associate Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University
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Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: Food Systems to Safeguard Biodiversity and Nature
Speaker: David Tilman, Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota, and Distinguished Professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California Santa Barbara
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Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: Healthy Diets for Healthy People
Speaker: Walter Willett, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School
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HIGHER ED AND COVID-19: Experiences from the Global South
Panelists: Phaivanh Phiapalath, Suzana M. Padua, and Emilia Inman
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Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: A Call for Collective Action on Food
Speaker: Agnes Kalibata, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the 2021 Food Systems Summit
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Fuller Seminar: Biodiversity Revisited - A New Agenda for a Just and Sustainable Future
Moderator: Mel Ryan, Luc Hoffman Institute
Panelists: Emma Woods, Royal Society, Federico Davila, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Isis Alvarez, Global Forest Coalition
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Fuller Seminar: FOOD: THE POWER IS ON YOUR PLATE: Transforming our food systems for a nature-positive, carbon-neutral future
Speaker: Johan Rockström, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research | University of Potsdam
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2019

What Should the Role of Conservation Breeding be in Conservation?
Daniel Ashe, Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA); Kira Mileham, IUCN Species Survival Commission; Barbara Taylor, Society for Marine Mammalogy Conservation Committee; Ginette Hemley, WWF - US
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Dark Commerce and Corruption: Undermining a Sustainable Future
Louise Shelley, Terrorism, Transnational Crime Corruption Center; Elizabeth Hart, WWF - US
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Sustainable Diets: Transforming Global Food Systems
Michael Clark, University of Oxford; Jessica Fanzo, Johns Hopkins University; Karen Luz, WWF - US
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2018

Listening to the Forest: cheaper tech and better data improve biodiversity monitoring
Mitch Aide, University of Puerto Rico
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Breakpoint: Reckoning with America’s Environmental Crises
Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego
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State of the World’s Fisheries: Lessons from both collapses and bright spots
Trevor Branch, University of Washington
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A God in Distress: Challenges of fitting elephants amidst 3 billion people in Asia
Vivek Menon, IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group
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2017

Chasing Coral Screening and Panel Discussion
Ruth Gates, University of Hawaii; Mark Eakin, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Gabby Ahmadia, WWF – US
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Natural Defense: Enlisting Bugs and Germs to Protect Our Food and Medicine
Emily Monosson, UMass Amherst
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Forecasting significant societal events using big data analytics
Naren Ramakrishnan, Discovery Analytics Center, Virginia Tech
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Beyond Behavior Change: Redefining demand reduction for the ivory trade
Renee Lertzman, Researcher and Communications Strategist
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2016

Crunch time for coral reefs?
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, The University of Queensland 

Health in the Climate Crisis
Sabrina McCormick, George Washington University and University of Pennsylvania

Maximizing Conservation Return on Investment: Are we really achieving the impacts we want?
Alexander Pfaff, Duke University 

Art to Action: Influencing behavior through creativity
Asher Jay, Creative Conservationist and 2014 National Geographic Society Emerging Explorer

A Half Century of Conservation: How Did It Happen?
Tom Lovejoy, United Nations Foundation

Saving a Species: Vaquita
Lorenzo Rojas-Brancho, National Institute of Ecology/Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada; Rebecca Lent, Marine Mammal Commission, and Enrique Sanjurjo, WWF-Mexico

A Blooming Problem: The Disruptive Impacts of Climate Change on Nature's Calendar
Richard Primack, Boston University; Lizzie Wolkovich, Harvard University

Is human pressure on Earth driving the Anthropocene over the edge?
Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Alpen Adria University

Synthetic Nature and the Future of Conservation
Kent Redford, Archiapelago Consulting

Do global market forces slow or grow habitat loss?
Eric Lambin, Stanford University and University of Louvain, Belgium

Monitoring global forest change at local scales using earth observation data
Matt Hansen, University of Maryland

Urban communities inspired by nature: connecting people and the planet
Tim Beatley, University of Virginia, and Stella Tarnay, George Washington University

Know your audience: influencing the American Public on climate change
Elke Weber, Columbia University; Matt Barreto, The University of Washington; and Molly Rauch, Mom’s Clean Air Force

Going to Extremes: The Alarming Science Behind Climate Change’s Increasingly Wild Weather
Jennifer Francis, Rutgers University, and Stu Ostro, The Weather Channel

Think like an investor: making smart conservation decisions
Hugh Possingham, University of Queensland

Peak Cropland: Saving Room for Nature while Feeding Humanity throughout the 21st Century
Joe Fargione, The Nature Conservancy

SkyTruthing: Clean Up Your Act, The Crowd is Watching!
John Amos and Paul Woods, SkyTruth

Conservation Science for the Anthropocene—Boundaries, Tipping Points, and System Change
Joshua Tewksbury, Luc Hoffmann Institute

Producing Wildlife: Managing a Conservation Reserve in India during the Anthropocene
Paul Robbins, University of Arizona

Can Social Networks Save Biodiversity?
Scott Loarie, Carnegie Institution for Science

Sustainability of World Fisheries & their contribution to global food security
Ray Hilborn, University of Washington

Farming the Future: Can we spare land for nature?
Navin Ramankutty, University of British Columbia

The facts are not enough: Overcoming public deadlock on climate change
Katharine Hayhoe, Texas Tech University

The Panda and the Anthropocene: The Real Challenge for Conservation
Bill Adams, University of Cambridge

Farming’s Perennial Future
Jon Paul Rodriguez, Center for Ecology of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Investigations

Insights from Biodiversity Science for Addressing Global Sustainability Challenges
Georgina Mace, Imperial College London

The Future of Plants
Peter Crane, Yale University

Farming’s Perennial Future
Jerry Glover, U.S. Agency for International Development

Elinor Ostrom, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University

Giving Science Away: Turning Tragedy to Hope in Humid Tropical Forest Conservation
Greg Asner, Carnegie Institution for Science

People and Nature: Conservation, Conflict, and Compromise
David Macdonald, Wildlife Conservation Research Unit

Ecological Consequences of Defaunation in Tropical Ecosystems
Rodolfo Dirzo, Stanford University

Ecological Restoration and Dreams of Natural Streams
Margaret Palmer, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Douglas R. Nader, Environmental Defense Fund

Dan Nepstad, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Paul R. Ehrlich, Stanford University

Andrew Baker, University of Miami

Carbon, Community and Livelihoods: Forest Commons in the 21st Century
Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan

Extreme Hydrological Conditions and Complex Channel Topology Drives Population Divergence and Speciation in the Lower Congo River
Melanie Stiassny, American Museum of Natural History

Peter J. Mumby, University of Exeter

David S. Wilcove, Princeton University

Claire Kremen, University of California

Protecting the Large Pelagics: New technologies for marine conservation in the open ocean
Patrick N. Halpin, Duke University

Changing Dynamics of Tropical Deforestation and Atmospheric Carbon Emissions
Ruth DeFries, Columbia University

Dangerous anthropogenic interference: the latest insights
Micheal Oppenheimer, Princeton University

2007

Setting practical conservation priorities—and sequestering carbon to pay for them
Stuart Pimm, Duke University and University of Pretoria

Why Tropical Parks are Failing
John Terbough, Duke University

Social, Economic and Political Drivers of Bornean Deforestation and Fires: Implications for Carbon Emissions, Biodiversity and Rural Livelihoods.
Liz Curran, Yale University

Brave New Ocean
Jeremy Jackson, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Paz con la Naturaleza: Costa Rica goes for Phase II Conservation
Dan Janzen, University of Pennsylvania

Sushi and Satellites: Tracking Giant Bluefin Tunas in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
Barbara A. Block, Stanford University and Tag A Giant Foundation