Social Science Research Council

The Committee for Research on Global Environmental Change (GEC) was comprised of 10 leading environmental scholars, with nearly 20 serving at different times until the completion of the GEC in 1998.  These were social and natural scientists from anthropology, political science, law, sociology, ecology, geography, economics, history, demography, mechanical engineering, plasma physics, applied physics, information science, plant, soil and environmental sciences, and forest resources.  Edith Brown Weiss, at Georgetown University Law School, chaired the Committee from 1989 till 1994, and Steven Sanderson, formerly Dean of Emory College, currently President of the Wildlife Conservation Society, succeeded her as chair till 1998.

Edith Brown Weiss, Committee Chair 1989 – 1994; Committee Member 1989 - 1996
Georgetown University Law School
Francis Cabell Brown Professor of International Law; Co-Director of Joint Degree in Law and Government
Research Interests:
Public International, Environmental, and Water Resources Law

Richard A. Berk, Committee Member 1989 - 1993
University of California, Los Angeles
Distinguished Professor of Statistics and Sociology
Research Interests:
Crime and Poverty; HIV / AIDS; Global Warming; Water and Urban Spaces; Conservation

William C. Clark, Committee Member 1989 – 1996
Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government
Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy & Human Development
Research Interests:
Ecology; Sustainable Development; Science and Technology; Policy; Environmental Policy; Resource Management

Harold K. Jacobson, Committee Member 1989 – 1993
Passed away in 2001.
University of Michigan, Political Science
Professor Emeritus of Political Science
Convening lead author of the 1994-1996 second scientific assessment of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Research Interests:
Global Environmental Change

Diana M. Liverman, Committee Member 1989 - 1993
Oxford University, School of Geography; Centre for the Environment; Environmental Change Institute
Professor of Environmental Science
Research Interests:
Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change; Climate Change Policy and Impacts; Social Causes and Consequences of Land Use Change; Environmental Management
 
William D. Nordhaus, Committee Member 1989 – 1996
Yale University
Sterling Professor of Economics
Research Interests:
Economics of Climate Change; Economic Modeling of Global Warming; Energy; Growth; Welfare

John F. Richards, Committee Member 1989 – 1995
Passed away in 2007.
Duke University
Professor of History
Research Interests:
History of South Asia; Environmental History; History of Opium

Thomas C. Schelling, Committee Member 1989 - 1994
University of Maryland, School of Public Policy
Distinguished University Professor
2005 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics
Research Interests:
Foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy and arms control; Energy

Stephen H. Schneider; Committee Member 1989 – 1996
Stanford University
Professor of Biological Sciences; Co-Director of the Center for Environmental Science and Policy; Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources
Research Interests:
Climatic Change; Global Warming; Food/Climate and Other Environmental/Science Public Policy Issues; Ecological and Economic Implications of Climatic Change

Billie Lee Turner II, Committee Member 1989 – 1993
Clark University, School of Geography (Director)
Milton P. & Alice C. Higgins Professor of Environment and Society
Research Interests:
Land-Cover and Land-Use Change; Cultural and Political Ecology;Smallholder Agriculture and Change; Global Environmental Change; Human Environment Relationships

Barbara Boyle Torrey, Committee Member 1993 – 1993
Population Reference Bureau; Formerly at National Research Council; Center for International Research (U.S. Census Bureau)
Visiting Scholar
Research Interests:
Health; Demography; Retirement
 
M. Granger Morgan, Committee Member 1993 – 1998
Carnegie Mellon University, Center for the Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change
Lord Chair Professor in Engineering; Professor and Department Head
Research Interests:
Integrated Assessment, Uncertainty in Policy Analysis; Risk Analysis, Management, and Communication; Technology and R&D policy

Steven E. Sanderson, Committee Chair 1994 – 1998; Committee Member 1993 - 1998
Wildlife Conservation Society; Formerly Dean of Emory College
President & Chief Executive Officer
Research Interests:
Politics of Rural Poverty; Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental change

Cynthia E. Rosenzweig, Committee Member 1993 - 1998
Barnard College / NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Adjunct Professor / Senior Scientists
Research Interests:
Global Environmental Change; Climate Variability and Change

Anne R. Pebley, Committee Member 1994 – 1998
University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health
Fred H. Bixby Chair, Community Health Sciences
Research Interests:
Fertility and Marriage Patterns, Children's Health and Welfare, and Family Organization; Environment

Roger E. Kasperson, Committee Member 1994 – 1998
Clark University; Human Dimensions of Global Change Committee for the CCSP
Research Professor and Distinguished Scientist
Research Interests:
Risk Analysis; Risk Communication; Global Environmental Change; Risk and Ethics; Environmental Policy

Robert O. Keohane, Committee Member 1994 – 1998
Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School
Professor of International Affairs
Research Interests:
Governance; Globalization; International Institutions; Legalization; Humanitarian intervention

Carole L. Crumley, Committee Member 1995 – 1998
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor of Anthropology
Professor in the Curriculum in Ecology
Research Interests:
Historical Ecology; State Societies; Complex Systems Theory; Global Environmental Change; Ethnography; Ethnohistory; and Archaeology of Europe
 
John Robert McNeill, Committee Member 1995 – 1998
Georgetown University
University Professor
Research Interests:
Environmental History; History of Yellow Fever in the Americas; Environmental History of the Cold War

Lisa Graumlich, Committee Member 1996 – 1998
University of Arizona, School of Natural Resources (Director)
Professor; Deputy Director and Director of the Earth Learning Center, Biosphere 2 Center (Columbia University)
Research Interests:
Forest Resources; Climatic Variation; Ecological Processes; Social Factors in Governing Change in Mountainous Regions; Forest conservation; Land Use/Land cover change

Martin Weitzman, Committee Member 1996 – 1998
Harvard University; 2007 Stern Review
Professor of Economics
Research Interests:
Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, Green Accounting, Economics of Biodiversity, Economics of Environmental Regulation, Economics of Climate Change