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ESA Vice Presidents’ Centennial Session: Frontiers in Science, Education, Management, and Policy to Address Pressing Environmental Issues

In celebration of ESA’s Centennial, ESA’s Vice Presidents for Education and Human Resources, Public Affairs, and Science bring together leaders at the intersections between science, education, management, and policy. Too often, we divide ecological topics into these constituent parts and address each part in isolation. But the most pressing environmental, social, and educational challenges require more integrated approaches. Seven of the speakers will focus on pressing environmental challenges and opportunities such as: climate change, biodiversity loss, land use/cover change, nutrient limitations and pollutants, human health, loss of ecosystem services, and restoring and managing for resilience. Talks will synthesize past accomplishments and future challenges in advancing ecological science and its integration with management, policy and education- providing insights into successful approaches for addressing environmental challenges. One key challenge is that our current research, educational, management and policy institutions don’t always reward or support integration across these activities. The 8th speaker will review successful pathways for the institutional changes to promote successful environmental problem solving. Finally, one of the ESA Vice Presidents will summarize results of a survey of ESA members and our stakeholders (educators, policy makers, ecosystem managers) to highlight future directions to maximize ecology’s role in advancing science and its outreach and applications.