Jianguo "Jack" Liu PhD

Jianguo "Jack" Liu, PhD

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Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability and Director
Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

Background:

A human-environment scientist and sustainability scholar, Jianguo "Jack" Liu holds the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability, is University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University and serves as director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability.

Liu takes a holistic approach to addressing complex human-environmental challenges through systems integration, such as the integration of ecology with social sciences, policy and advanced technologies. He is particularly keen to connect seemingly unconnected issues, for example, telecoupling, divorce and environmental sustainability. His work has been published in journals such as Nature and Science and has been widely covered by the international news media.

Liu has served on various international and national committees and panels. He was a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science and has been named to the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification. Also, Liu was a coordinating lead author of the global assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services organized by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Liu also is the founder of the International Network of Research on Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS-Net.org) and is a past president of the U.S. Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology.

In recognition of his efforts and achievements in research, teaching, and service, Liu has received many awards, such as being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He has received the World Sustainability Award from the MDPI Sustainability Foundation, the Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science from The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters and Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the Guggenheim Fellowship Award, the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, and the Distinguished Landscape Ecologist Award and the Distinguished Service Award from US-IALE. From the Ecological Society of America, Liu has been honored with the Eminent Ecologist Award, the Sustainability Science Award, the Innovation in Sustainability Science Award and the Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship, as well as being named a fellow in the society.

He was first named in the Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers List in 2018, which recognizes influential researchers around the world.

Liu came to MSU after completing his postdoctoral work at Harvard University. He also was a visiting scholar at Stanford, Harvard and Princeton.

Areas of Interest:

Coupled human and natural systems (CHANS); sustainability; telecoupling; metacoupling; conservation; environment; climate mitigation and adaptation; natural carbon capture; ecological economics; biodiversity; ecosystem services; landscapes; applications of GIS and remote sensing technology; household-environment interactions; systems integration and modeling