Steward Pickett

Meaning, Model, and Metaphor at the Intersection of Ecological Science and Urban Design

Steward T. A. Pickett was born in Louisville, KY in 1950.  He received the B.S. from the University of Kentucky in 1972 and the Ph.D. in 1977 from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.  He served on the faculty of Rutgers University until 1987, teaching ecology and participating in the minority affairs programs of Rutgers College.  In 1987, Dr. Pickett joined the staff of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, where he is now a Distinguished Senior Scientist.  During 2009/2010 he held a Martin Luther King, Jr. Fellowship in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  In 2013 he was Visiting Professor of Civil Engineering at the Cooper Union in New York City, where he delivered a series of public lectures on urban crisis and transition.  In 2014 he was Visiting Professor for Senior International Scientists at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a guest appointment that has been extended through 2020.

His research focuses on spatial heterogeneity and temporal dynamics in ecological systems.  He has investigated succession and natural disturbance in plant communities, experimentally examined the function of forest-field edges, and discovered structure-nutrient relationships in riparian zones of the savanna landscapes in Kruger National Park, South Africa.  His major current efforts focus on urban regions as social-ecological systems.  He was the founding Director of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, urban Long-Term Ecological Research site, currently participates in that project as Director Emeritus.  As a part of those duties he produces a Web Log (http://besdirector.blogspot.com/).  He is Co-Director of the Urban Sustainability Research Coordination Network, a five year integrative project involving participants from 40 global cities.

He has contributed nine books and more than 250 scientific publications addressing such topics as disturbance, patch dynamics, ecological heterogeneity, humans as components of ecosystems, ecological philosophy of science, conservation, arid land biodiversity, and urban ecology.  His recent books include the linked social and ecological patchiness in urban ecosystems, the role of resilience as a link between ecology and urban design, and explorations of the relationship between ecological science and environmental ethics.  Dr. Pickett has contributed to distinguished lecture series the US, as well as in Europe, Latin America, Indonesia, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and China.  He has co-taught graduate courses in landscape ecology in Israel and Chile, on sustainability at MIT, and on visualizing ecology for urban design at Parsons The New School for Design.  He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1992, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993, and of the Ecological Society of America in 2015.  He has been awarded the Conservation Innovator Award by Columbia University, and the Centennial Award by the Botanical Society of America.

Many of his contributions to the profession of ecology have been through the Ecological Society of America, where he served as the inaugural Vice President for Science, Chairperson of the Membership Committee, and a member of the Council and the Governing Board.  He served as President of ESA in 2011-2012, and his term as Past President concluded in August 2013.  He has also been a member of the Council of the International Association for Vegetation Science, the Science Advisory Board of the National Center for Ecological Synthesis and Analysis, the Biology Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation, and the National Design Committee for the National Ecological Observatory Network.  He was a board member of Defenders of Wildlife from 1996-2005, a member of the National Research Council’s Board on Environmental Sciences and Toxicology, and was elected to three terms as Board Member-at-Large of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.  His service to AIBS continues through 2019 as Secretary and Executive Board Member.  He was recently appointed to the Board of the City As Living Laboratory, a not-for profit promoting the environmental art of the Mary Miss Studio.  Editorial service has included membership on the boards of the Journal of Vegetation Science, Ecosphere, Community Ecology, and of Landscape and Urban Planning, and membership on the editorial advisory bodies for Urban Ecosystems, Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, and Urban Ecology.

In his spare time he enjoys listening to early music, jazz, and west African music, and pursues landscape photography on trips to amazing places with adventuresome friends, and reading contemporary poetry.  His perennial garden is a perennial mess, but he enjoys his surprisingly quiet, tree shaded Poughkeepsie, NY backyard.