UW Environment is pleased to announce that Dan Brown will be joining the University of Washington as the new director of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, effective January 1, 2018. As director, Dan will play a vital role in guiding the School’s academic growth and developing new initiatives, providing leadership and management of its programs, centers, and research grants, allocating its revenues in a manner that supports its mission, and enhancing its sizable and growing endowment. In addition, the SEFS director also sits on the Natural Resources Board of Washington State, which oversees the management of state lands.
“Dan is extremely well poised to take on this position. Throughout his career Dan has pursued research and teaching that cuts across the ecological and human dimensions of natural resources, and has engaged with the challenges inherent in multidisciplinary collaborations,” Lisa Graumlich, dean and Mary Laird Wood Professor at the College of the Environment said. “Through leadership positions, Dan has developed the skills necessary to identify and articulate how multiple disciplines and approaches can work together to address environmental questions and challenges.”
Dan recently served as interim dean for the School of Natural Resources and Environment (renamed the School for Environment and Sustainability effective July 1, 2017) at the University of Michigan, where he is also a professor in the fields of conservation ecology and environmental informatics. His specific research interests focus on land use change and its effects on ecosystems and human vulnerability. His work connects a computer-based simulation of land-use-change processes with GIS and remote sensing based data on historical patterns of landscape change and social surveys. Join us in welcoming Dan to the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, the College of the Environment and the University of Washington.
The College also wishes to thank Liz Van Volkenburgh for her service as the interim director.
“Liz has been a passionate advocate for the School and its community,” Graumlich said. “I am appreciative of her work to make the School, the College and the UW a more diverse, inclusive place, her commitment to learning as much as she could about the SEFS community so that she could better articulate its strengths and address its weaknesses, and her calm wisdom as she led the School through this transition.”
Finally, thanks are due to the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences director advisory search committee for their energy, enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. The committee membership included Greg Miller, Vice Dean, College of Engineering (Chair), Renata Bura, Associate Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, Ann Forest Burns, American Forest Resource Council (representing Mark Doumit, Executive Director, Washington Forest Protection Association), David Butman, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, Gene Duvernoy, Forterra, College of the Environment Advisory Board, Tom Friberg, College of the Environment Campaign Committee, Mitch Friedman, Executive Director, Conservation Northwest, Wendy Gibble, UW Botanic Gardens, Caitlin Littlefield, Graduate Student, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, John Marzluff, Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, André Punt, Director, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, Sergey Rabotyagov, Associate Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, Edie Sonne Hall, Weyerhaeuser Company, Wendy Star, Administrator, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, and Julian (Morgan) Varner, US Forest Service.
