Earth System Visioning

Visioning Task Team

Johan Rockström (Chair)

Johan Rockström is the Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is a Professor in Natural Resource Management at Stockholm University and a guest Professor at the Beijing Normal University. He is a leading international scientist on global water resources and sustainable development, with more than 15 years experience of research on agriculture, water resources and ecosystems, with more than 50 peer reviewed scientific articles and several books in fields of global environmental change, resilience and sustainability, agricultural water management, watershed hydrology, global water resources and food production, and eco-hydrology. He has served as advisor to several international organizations, governments and the European Union on sustainability and development, and is a frequented key-note speaker to several international research, policy and development arenas on sustainable development. Read more

Heide Hackmann

Heide Hackmann read for a M.Phil in contemporary social theory at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and holds a PhD in science and technology studies from the University of Twente in the Netherlands . She has worked as a science policy maker, researcher and consultant in the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and South Africa. Her research has focused on science policy studies, the governance of science, and research evaluation. Heide was elected to the position of Secretary-General of the ISSC by the Council’s General Assembly in November 2006. Heide Hackmann serves as an observer on the task team.

Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom explores how institutional rules affect the structure of action situations within which individuals face incentives, make choices, and jointly affect each other. In addition, she examines problems involving collective goods and common-pool resource systems, and how various types of institutions enhance or detract from the capabilities of individuals to achieve equitable, workable, efficient solutions are a central theoretical concern. In 2009, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Read more

Kari Raivio

Medical studies at the University of Helsinki, MD 1965, PhD 1969, postdoctoral research at UC San Diego for 3 years. Specialty training in pediatrics and neonatology, Professor of Perinatal Medicine and Head of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the University Hospital from 1982 to 1996, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine 1994-96. Visiting Professor at Washington University School of Medicine, St.Louis 1991-92. Elected Rector of the University of Helsinki 1996-2003, thereafter Chancellor of the University until retirement in 2008. Past President of the European Society for Perinatal Medicine, European Society for Pediatric Research, League of European Research Universities, Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Main research interests in clinical newborn medicine, purine metabolism, and oxygen toxicity. Currently ICSU’ s Vice President for Scientific Planning and Review and chair of the Committee on Scientific Planning and Review (CSPR).

Walter Reid (former Chair)

Dr. Walter Reid is the Director of the Conservation and Science Program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Previously, during 2005 and early 2006, he was a Consulting Professor with the Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Dr. Reid was responsible for the creation of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which he directed from 1998 until the release of the findings in March 2005. From 1992 to 1998, Dr. Reid was Vice President of the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C. He is a member of the Board of Editors of the journals Ecosystems, Ecological Applications, and Public Library of Science-Biology, and past member of the Board of the Society for Conservation Biology. Dr. Reid earned his Ph.D. in Zoology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) from the University of Washington in 1987 and his B.A. in Zoology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1978.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is director of PIK since 1993 and Professor for Theoretical Physics at Potsdam University.  He is a member of numerous national and international panels for scientific strategies and policy advice on environment  & development matters like the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), the US National Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Society and of the Editorial Boards of several scientific journals like “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”. Schellnhuber is Chairman of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) and also a longstanding member of the IPCC. As a member of the High Level Expert Group he also advises the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, on energy and climate change issues.  He authored and co-authored about 210 articles and more than 40 books in the fields of condensed matter physics, complex systems dynamics, climate change research, Earth System analysis, and sustainability science.  In 2004, he was awarded the title ‘Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’ (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.  In 2007, he received the German Environment Prize for his scientific work in the field of climate impact research and its dissemination to politicians and the public and in 2008 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Brandenburg.

Anne Whyte

Anne Whyte is a social scientist with training in geography and psychology who spent her first field seasons working on archeological digs in Mexico and Iran. Her early research focused on environmental risk assessment which later broadened into studying environmental policy, particularly within the context of international development and development assistance. She has worked in many developing countries and undertaken evaluations of major international development programmes and organizations. She was Chair of the Canadian Global Change Programme and active in the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme. She has also served on the Scientific Committees for IHDP and START and is currently on the CSPR Committee of ICSU. She was Co-Chair of the Review Board of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and has served on the Boards of many international organizations. She is a former President of the Canadian Association of Geographers and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Khotso Mokhele rotated off the task team in September 2009. He was succeeded by Johan Rockström.