The University of Minnesota is pleased to report that, following an extensive international search,
Provost E. Thomas Sullivan has selected Professor Jonathan A. Foley as the permanent director of the Institute on the Environment.
Dr. Foley is the director and founder of the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment at the University of Wisconsin and the Gaylord Nelson Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences. He will begin his duties as Institute director on August 25, 2008.
A world-class scientist of earth systems modeling, Dr. Foley is an exceptionally creative and experienced institution builder, with a rich and high-impact range of interdisciplinary research, teaching and outreach experience. His work examines complex global environmental systems and their interactions with human societies. He shares a commitment and vision to see that the Institute on the Environment flourishes as one of the finest in the world.
Professor Foley has won numerous awards and honors, including the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award; the Samuel C. Johnson Distinguished Faculty Fellowship; the J.S. McDonnell Foundation’s 21st Century Science Award; and the Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America. In 1997, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Professor Foley holds a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Together with Provost Sullivan, the Institute on the Environment staff and research fellows extend their deepest gratitude for the remarkable leadership and dedicated service of Interim Director Deborah Swackhamer. Her role in creating the Institute’s initial structure and mission and in building it to its current strength has been exemplary.
Read the press release
View Jonathan Foley's CV (pdf)
