Mark Stafford Smith

Senior Advisor to the STAP Chair


Biography

Dr. Mark Stafford Smith is based in Canberra, Australia, and contributes to research on adaptation and sustainable development. He is retired from CSIRO, Australia's national research organization, where he oversaw a highly interdisciplinary program of research on many aspects of adapting to climate change, as well as regularly interacting with national and international policy issues around sustainable development. He continues as a CSIRO Honorary Fellow, and in several international roles.

Dr. Stafford Smith has over 30 years' experience in drylands systems ecology, management and policy, including senior roles such as CEO of the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre in Alice Springs, and providing advice to various government boards on biodiversity, dryland catchments, drought policy, climate adaptation, regional development, and environmental monitoring, among others. He has integrated his systems ecology and modelling foundations with social and economic sciences, publishing on decision making under uncertainty, enterprise and regional economics, transdisciplinarity, and equity, generally contributing to the development of sustainability science.

Dr. Stafford Smith has worked in drylands systems in Latin America, the U.S., and all parts of Africa and the Mediterranean, the Middle East, some parts of Asia and across the diversity of environments in Australia. His significant international roles include being past vice-chair of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme's Scientific Committee; co-chair of the Planet Under Pressure: New Knowledge Towards Solutions conference in 2012 on global environmental change in the lead up to Rio+20; inputs to the development of the UN's Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals; and, through 2013-17 Chair of the inaugural Science Committee for Future Earth, which helps to coordinate research towards global sustainability worldwide. He continues to publish, adding to over 200 peer-reviewed contributions to science, as well as many presentations and publications for less-specialized audiences.

You may review Dr. Stafford Smith's full CV here.

 

Mark Stafford Smith