Maria J. Santos

Maria J. Santos is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography at the University of Zurich with a research focus on Earth System Science to specifically understand social-ecological system dynamics, their dependence on biodiversity as to inform sustainability pathways. She is also the Co-director of the University Research Priority Program in Global Change and Biodiversity. She received her PhD in Ecology from the University of California Davis in 2010. Before she was appointed at UZH in 2018, she was an Assistant Professor at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, in the Netherlands and a Research affiliate with the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. Her memberships include the Forum Biodiversitaet Kuratorium of the Swiss Academy of Sciences, the Scientific Advisory Board to the OECD Co-operative Research Programme in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, and the International Union for Nature Conservation Species Survival Commission Climate Change Specialist Group, and officer of the Forest Biodiversity section for the International Union of Forest Research Associations.