Liz Hadly in Indonesia

Elizabeth Hadly, Paul S. & Billie Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology and Professor of Biology and Earth System Science, Emerita, at Stanford University, is a global change scientist who has spent more than 40 years studying the impacts of environmental change of the past, present and future on biodiversity. Among many leadership roles at Stanford, she served as the Senior Associate Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education from 2013 to 2016, chaired the Faculty Senate in 2017 through 2018, and was assigned to the President’s Faculty Committee on the Organizational Structure for Stanford’s Sustainability Initiative from 2019 to 2021. Professor Hadly was on the Faculty Advisory Board at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve for more than 20 years and its Faculty Director from 2016 to 2023.

In her continued quest to preserve and protect natural lands, since 2024 she has served on the Board of Trustees of the National Park Conservation Association. Professor Hadly’s work has taken her from iconic Yellowstone National Park to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, from the Himalayas to the jungles of Rwanda, from the grassland steppe of Patagonia to the Kalahari Desert, and from the Arctic to the Antarctic as she seeks to understand and communicate about how people are changing the planet. Professor Hadly seeks to reach outside the ivory tower on issues related to climate change, disease, pollution, extinction, habitat loss, inequity, and human population growth—all features of our human-dominated epoch, the Anthropocene. 

During our program, she will discuss the geological history of Australasia and ‘Wallacea;’ its unique marine, continental and island biodiversity; the intriguing early human colonization of Australia and the pivotal history of “The Spice Islands” in human colonial expansion; and the myriad challenges this region faces today. “The transition between two continental biogeographic realms—Sunda (Asia) and Sahul (Australia)—is abrupt and very narrow, with endemic species found nowhere else. Marine diversity centered here in the Coral Triangle is greater than anywhere else on the planet,” says Professor Hadly. “This area is a true laboratory where the interplay of tectonics and life has unfolded over millions of years.” 

Positions at Stanford

• Paul S. and Billie Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology, Emerita

• Professor of Biology, Emerita

• Professor of Earth System Science, Emerita

Academic History

• BA, anthropology, University of Colorado, 1981

• MS, quaternary science, Northern Arizona University, 1990

• PhD, integrative biology, UC-Berkeley, 1995