Liz Hadly in Wyoming

The Paul S. & Billie Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology and a professor of biology and Earth system science at Stanford University, Elizabeth Hadly is a global change scientist who has spent more than 40 years studying the impacts of environmental change of the past, present and future of biodiversity. She served on the faculty at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve for more than 20 years. Her research has taken her from iconic Yellowstone National Park to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, from the Himalayas to the jungles of Rwanda, from the grassland steppe of Patagonia to the Kalahari Desert, and from the Arctic to the Antarctic in her ongoing efforts to understand and communicate about how people are changing the planet. Liz seeks to reach outside the ivory tower on issues related to climate change, disease, pollution, extinction, habitat loss, inequity and human population growth—all features of our human-dominated epoch, the Anthropocene.  

During our program, she will discuss the geological history of Yellowstone, its unique ecosystem and Yellowstone in the present time. “Yellowstone is the ‘crown jewel’ of America’s national parks, as those who have stepped into its wilderness know,” says Professor Hadly. “But for those who haven’t been there in winter, you’re in for a treat—the chance to be immersed in its vastness, the silence, the slowness of life.”

Positions at Stanford

• Paul S. and Billie Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology

• Professor of Earth system science

• Professor, by courtesy, of Earth and planetary sciences

• Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor

• Mr. and Mrs. Fran Yeung University Fellow in Undergraduate Education

• Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

• Senior Fellow at the Center for Innovation in Global Health

Academic History

• BA, anthropology, University of Colorado, 1981

• MS, quaternary science, Northern Arizona University, 1990

• PhD, integrative biology, UC-Berkeley, 1995