Someone once asked me if my research collaborations abroad were a worthwhile use of time and money. I had just explained a project, which was effectively desk work – the statistical analysis of a large dataset. Why use public money to fly all the way to Denmark and upend a life to do a project…

Ecology is often criticized for being a weak science, with limited data, few ideas, and little predictive power. As a practicing scientist, I often feel frustrated by our collective inability to make the same dramatic progress as seen in other fields – for example, physics in the earth 20th century, during the quantum mechanical revolution.…

I just won second place in the Faces of Biology contest, sponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). They focus on showcasing the broader impacts of science in society, and this contest was a way for them to present the different aspects of science to policymakers. I’m very proud to have contributed an…

The value of wild landscapes is a theme that has preoccupied me for the past weeks. A stream of coincidental experiences have contributed to this focus: the Wilhjelm+12 rewilding conference at the University of Copenhagen, a recent PNAS publication by my collaborator Greg Asner on elevated rates of gold mining in the western Amazon, a…