Peter Vitousek is an ecologist and the Clifford G. Morrison Professor of Population and Resource Studies at Stanford University, where he has been on the faculty since 1984. His research interests include: evaluating the global cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus, and how they are altered by human activity; determining the effects of invasive species on the workings of whole ecosystems; understanding how the interaction of land and culture contributed to the sustainability of Hawaiian society before European contact; and more generally using the extraordinary ecosystems of Hawaii as models for understanding how the world works. Peter is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, director of Stanford's Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER), and a co-director of the Hawaii Ecosystems Project (a multi-University research consortium) and of the First Nations Futures Program (a leadership training consortium developed by Native Hawaiian and New Zealand Maori organizations).