Dennis Ojima

Dr. Dennis Ojima is a senior scholar at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. He is on temporary leave from Colorado State University where he is also a senior research scientist and served as Interim Director in 2005 through 2006 at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL). Currently at the Heinz Center, Dr. Ojima is involved in the Global Change Program working on issues related to climate change impacts on ecosystems, adaptation and mitigation strategies to climate change. Recent research activities have been aimed at better integration of social science research in the study of environmental sciences, especially in the area of evaluation of changes in ecosystem services and land use decision making. This research is being carried out in Central Asia, Mongolia, and China to study the linkage between the pastoral land use and environmental changes related to recent social, economic, and political conditions of the region. He is an active researcher in the North American Carbon Project serving on the Data-Model Working Group. With the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he serves on the international steering committee for Regional Carbon Management. Recently, he was co-chair of the planning team developing the Science Plan for the Global Land Project and was the co-chair of the Global Land Project in 2005-2006, the new Core Project which integrates human dimensions and ecological sciences for the study of land processes under the auspices of the IGBP and the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP). Dr. Ojima is also member on the U.S. National SCOPE Committee and past member-at-large on the Governing Board of the Ecological Society of America (2005-2007). Dr. Ojima received his BA and Masters Degree in Botany from Pomona College (1975) and the University of Florida (1978), and his PhD from the Rangeland Ecosystem Science Department at Colorado State University in 1987. His research areas include global change effects on ecosystem dynamics. From 1997 through 2000, he led the regional climate change assessment for the Central Great Plains as part of the US National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change.