Distinguished Senior Scientist – Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

March 19-23, 2023

Steward T. A. Pickett is an ecologist and Distinguished Senior Scientist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in Millbrook, New York. He was awarded the PhD from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 1977.

He specializes in urban and landscape ecology, and was founding director of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study Long-Term Ecological Research project. His employs a social-ecological research approach to the structure and dynamics of urban areas and complex regional landscapes. Recent urban ecology research focuses on the equity of green stormwater infrastructure, and the ecology of segregation.

He has worked in diverse systems, ranging from primary forests and post-agricultural oldfields in the eastern United States, riparian woodlands in South Africa, and the changing peri-urban zone in Beijing, China.

He has produced books on natural disturbance, ecological heterogeneity, humans as components of ecosystems, conservation, bridging ecology and urban design, philosophy of ecology, and linking ecology with ethics. He seeks to increase the diversity and inclusiveness of ecological science, and is active in the Ecological Society of America (ESA) and the American Institute of Biological Sciences to this end.

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Ecological Society of America. He is a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

He is a 2022 recipient of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation, and the ESA’s Eminent Ecologist for 2021.