Harvard's Dr. John Holdren named new director of Woods Hole Research Center.

Founder George M. Woodwell to Serve as Director Emeritus

July 2, 2004

Dr. John P. Holdren

Lawrence S. Huntington, chairman of the board of trustees of the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, has announced that Dr. John P. Holdren, a trustee of the Center and professor at Harvard, will assume the directorship of the Center next June 1, 2005. Dr. George M. Woodwell, founder and director for the past 20 years, will become director emeritus.

The Woods Hole Research Center conducts research, policy analysis, and education on the roles of the world's soils and vegetation in ecosystem function, global climatic change, and sustainable livelihoods for the earth's human population. With a staff of about 40 and an operating budget of $6 million per year, the Woods Hole Research Center is a leader in the use of satellite imagery to study changes in the earth’s vegetation; it conducts research and training at field sites in Cape Cod, Maine, the Brazilian Amazon, Siberia, and the Congo. It is an influential voice in international discussions of climate change policy.

Dr. Holdren is currently Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. For the past decade Dr. Holdren has also been Visiting Distinguished Scholar and trustee of the Woods Hole Research Center. He will continue part-time on the Harvard faculty after assuming the Center directorship in 2005.

Dr. George M. Woodwell

Dr. Woodwell founded the Woods Hole Research Center in 1985, after distinguished parallel careers in research, teaching, and environmental advocacy spanning Yale University, the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund. An ecologist, he has done pioneering work on the structure and function of natural communities and their roles in the operation of the biosphere, on the concentration of pesticides in food webs, on the ecological effects of ionizing radiation, and on the role of forests in the global carbon cycle and in climate change.

Dr. Holdren was trained in engineering and physics but has devoted most of his professional attention for the past 35 years to interdisciplinary studies of energy, environment, and arms control. He co-founded in 1973 and co-led until 1996 the interdisciplinary graduate program in Energy and Resources at the University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching at Harvard since 1996 have focused on causes and consequences of global climate change, challenges and opportunities with advanced energy technologies, and international cooperation to address problems of environment, development, and international security.

Mr. Huntington said he spoke for all of the Center's 22-person board in expressing enthusiasm for its selection of Dr. Holdren to continue the high caliber of leadership and vision that Dr. Woodwell has provided to the Center since its inception. Dr. Woodwell, for his part, said he could not be more pleased with the trustees’ decision. "I rejoice in the vigor of the trustees’ support for the institution, share in their deep respect for Dr. Holdren--and in the talents he will bring to the further development of the Center’s contributions to science and public affairs."

Dr. Holdren called it “an immense privilege and honor for me to have been chosen by the Center’s board to succeed Dr. Woodwell in 2005.” He noted that the Woods Hole Research Center under Woodwell's direction has become “a world leader in research and policy engagement on the interactions of soils, forests, human activities, and global change,” and observed that "the superb scientific and administrative staff and the extraordinary board that George has assembled are tremendous assets for a new director.” Holdren also noted that the Center’s new energy-efficient “green” headquarters is "a spectacular, working embodiment of the Center’s focus on meeting human needs without causing harm to the immediate environment and the larger world."

Both Woodwell and Holdren have long been recognized as leaders in the scientific and environmental-policy communities. Both are members of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and both have been recipients of the Volvo International Prize for Environment, the Heinz Prize (Woodwell's for environment, Holdren's for public policy), and many other awards.

Dr. Woodwell was a founder of both the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund (now Environmental Defense). He is a past president of the Ecological Society of America, and was a long-term member of the board and sometime chairman of the World Wildlife Fund -US. He is currently a member of the board of the Ocean Conservancy, the Grand Canyon National Park Foundation, and Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (Amazonian Institute for Environmental Research) in Belém, Brazil.

Dr. Holdren was a member of President Clinton’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) from 1994 to 2001, chairing PCAST studies on nuclear-materials protection, US energy research and development strategy, and international cooperation on energy-technology innovation. He served as chair of the executive committee of the Pugwash

Conferences on Science and World Affairs from 1987 to 1997, and in that capacity delivered the acceptance speech when the Pugwash Conferences received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.

Dr. Holdren is a member of the National Academy of Engineering as well as the National Academy of Sciences, and he chairs committees in the Academy complex on international security and arms control, US-India cooperation on energy and environment, and US-Russian cooperation against nuclear proliferation. He is also a trustee of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

A world-famous center of scientific research, the village of Woods Hole first attracted scientists whose research was focused on marine biology and, later, the global oceans. Under Woodwell’s leadership, the Woods Hole Research Center brought the importance of forests in the biosphere, the carbon cycle, and global climate change into clearer focus. The interests of researchers at the Center now include, as well, the interactions of soils, forests, and water, and the competing human uses of the biota for food, fiber, chemical feedstock, carbon sequestration, and essential ecosystem functions. The institution works locally, assisting communities with resource management, and internationally, to promote policies that stabilize climate and protect the integrity of the global environment.

©Woods Hole Research Center, 2008