Garry Peterson

I am a professor in environmental sciences with emphasis on resilience and social-ecological systems. I am also head of subject in sustainability science at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and co-chairs the Resilience Alliance. My research combines three themes: abrupt systemic change, how ecological changes impacts people, and using futures thinking to improve navigating surprising social-ecological change. I am head of subject for the centre’s Sustainability Science PhD programme.

I have a Bachelors degree in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo, and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Florida. I was also a postdoc at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at University of California, Santa Barbara and the Center for Limnology at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to coming to the Stockholm Resilience Centre I was an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair jointly appointed in the department of Geography and the McGill School of the Environment, at McGill University.

I was co-editor of the Arctic Council’s Arctic Resilience Report. I was a coordinating lead author for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s Scenarios Assessment. I was coordinating lead author for IPBES’s scenarios and models assessment, and I am currently a review editor for an IPBES regional assessment. I have been a member of the Resilience Alliance, since its founding. I have conducted and contributed to participatory ecosystem management processes in Canada, the USA, and Sweden.

As of recently, I am co-chair of the board of the Resilience Alliance (RA). Established in 1999, the Resilience Alliance is an international, multidisciplinary research organization that explores the dynamics of social-ecological systems. RA members collaborate across disciplines to advance the understanding and practical application of resilience, adaptive capacity, and transformation of societies and ecosystems in order to cope with change and support human well-being.  The RA publishes the journal “Ecology and Society”.