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Keynote Speaker - Greg Asner

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Greg Asner is the Director of the ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science in Hilo, Hawaiʻi and Tempe, Arizona. He holds Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees in engineering, ecology, and biology, respectively, from the University of Colorado. Dr. Asner has lived and worked in the Hawaiian Islands since 1987, residing on the islands of Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, and Hawaiʻi. He previously worked for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, The Nature Conservancy of Hawaiʻi, Stanford University, and the Carnegie Institution for Science. He joined ASU in 2019 to expand the university’s coastal and marine science programs in Hawaiʻi and elsewhere. In 2018, he founded the Hawaiʻi Marine Education and Research Center as a science outreach and convening center for communities and government agencies, and the Big Island’s first marine station. Dr. Asner’s scientific research focuses on interactions between communities, climate and mauka-to-makai ecosystems. He and his staff use extensive field work and community engagement, aerial and satellite-based mapping, and computer modeling to improve conservation and management options in the Hawaiian Islands and around the world. He has published more than 600 scientific articles and is one of the highest cited ecologists in the world on tropical ecology, coral reefs, land use change, and conservation science. Dr. Asner has served numerous national and international programs, including as a Senior Fellow for the U.S. State Department. He is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award from President Bill Clinton in 2000. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2013, and he won the Heinz Award for Environment in 2017.
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