Liz Hadly in Wyoming

Elizabeth Hadly, Paul S. & Billie Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology and Professor of Biology and Earth System Science, Emerita, at Stanford University, 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 and as its faculty director from 2016 to 2023. In her continued quest to preserve and protect natural lands, she now serves on the board of the National Park Conservation Association. 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, assembly of its unique ecosystem, and the challenges Yellowstone faces today. “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, Emerita

• Professor of Earth System Science, Emerita

Academic History

• BA, anthropology, University of Colorado, 1981

• MS, quaternary science, Northern Arizona University, 1990

• PhD, integrative biology, UC-Berkeley, 1995