Dr. Dennis Ojima is a Professor, Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability; Senior Research Scientist, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University; and University Director of the North Central Climate Science Center at Colorado State University for the Department of Interior. His research areas include climate and land use changes on ecosystems around the world, carbon accounting, and adaptation and mitigation strategies to climate change. He is an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, is serving on the National Research Council Board on Environmental Change and Society, and was Resident Senior Scholar at the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment in Washington, DC. He has been recognized for his international contributions in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which received the 2005 Zayed International Prize for the Environment and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2013, he was honored as a Champion of the Environment by the Mongolian Minister of the Environment and Green Development. Professor Ojima received his BA and Master’s Degrees in botany from Pomona College (1975) and the University of Florida (1978), and his PhD from the Rangeland Ecosystem Science Department at Colorado State University in 1987.