Dr. Diane Pataki serves as the Chief Scientist and Vice President for Science. Trained as an ecologist, her work has spanned the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, the role of human and biological processes in air and water resources, and interactions between urbanization, landscape management, and biodiversity. Her recent projects have been focused on nature-based solutions for sustainable cities and communities.
Pataki has a B.A. in environmental science from Barnard College and an M.S. and Ph.D. in ecology from Duke University. She is the former Director of the Arizona State University (ASU) School of Sustainability, the founder and former Chief Strategy Officer of the ASU-led and National Science Foundation-supported Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWSIE), and a Foundation Professor in the ASU School of Sustainability. She has also served as the Associate Vice President for Research, Associate Dean, and Professor of Biology at the University of Utah, and the founding director of the University of California, Irvine Center for Environmental Biology and the Steele-Burnand Anza Borrego Desert Research Center.
Pataki is located on the Tempe, Arizona campus of Arizona State University, and also spends time in the canyon country of eastern Utah. In her spare time, she can be found hiking and exploring the beautiful national forests and public lands of the Southwest.
