William F. Laurance is a distinguished leader in tropical ecology and conservation science with global impact. He currently serves as a Distinguished Research Professor at James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland, Australia, where he directs the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science. After earning his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989, he established himself as a leading environmental researcher whose work spans the world's tropical forest regions. His distinguished career includes serving as a former Australian Laureate, one of Australia's highest academic honors, and as President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.
Dr. Laurance has made seminal contributions to our understanding of tropical forest fragmentation and conservation, publishing more than 800 scientific and popular articles with over 106,000 citations and an h-index of 154, ranking him among the top environmental scientists globally. His groundbreaking research introduced influential concepts including biomass collapse, the hyperdynamism hypothesis, and the landscape-divergence hypothesis, fundamentally reshaping how scientists understand edge effects in fragmented habitats. He has published over 60 papers in prestigious journals Science and Nature, with his 2002 study on ecosystem decay in Amazonian forest fragments becoming a cornerstone of tropical conservation science with more than 2,400 citations. His work on the synergistic impacts of deforestation, logging, hunting, road expansion, and climate change has provided critical insights for policymakers and conservation practitioners worldwide.
As a leading voice for environmental sustainability, Dr. Laurance founded and directs ALERT—the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers—an international organization promoting scientific understanding of environmental challenges in the tropics. His influence extends beyond academia through his role as a four-time winner of Australia's Outstanding Science Writing Prize and his active engagement with policymakers and the public on conservation issues. A Fellow of the Royal Society, the Australian Academy of Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, he has received numerous prestigious honors including the Heineken Environment Prize and the BBVA Frontiers in Ecology and Conservation Biology Award. Dr. Laurance continues to advance tropical conservation science through his ongoing research on infrastructure development impacts and his leadership in training the next generation of environmental scientists across the tropics.
