| 1 | Name: | Dr. Gretchen Cara Daily | |
| Institution: | Stanford University | ||
| Year Elected: | 2008 | ||
| Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 205. Microbiology | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1964 | ||
Gretchen Daily is a professor of biological sciences; the director of the Tropical Research Program at the Center for Conservation Biology; a senior fellow at CESP; and the Director of the Interdisciplinary Program on Environment and Resources at Stanford University. An ecologist by training, she is working to develop a scientific basis - and political and institutional support - for managing Earth's life support systems. Professor Daily's greatest contributions have been in developing a framework for illuminating the benefits generated by natural capital and the tradeoffs associated with alternative paths of development as a basis for implementing new conservation finance and policy. To this end, she has led interdisciplinary teams, worked closely with economists and other ecologists and authored or edited influential publications that have given the subject great prominence. She has been involved both in developing the theoretical framework and in applying it to case studies. Her efforts in this area have also led her to create the new discipline of countryside biogeography. Daily organized and is the director of the path-breaking Natural Capital Project, which seeks to align conservation and financial incentives. She has also done important studies of the carrying capacity of Earth, humanity's deteriorating epidemiological environment and the importance of equity in solving human problems. Gretchen Daily has published approximately 150 scientific and popular articles. Her most recent book, coauthored with Katherine Ellison, is The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable (2002). She was presented with the Japanese Cosmos Award in 2009. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2003) and the National Academy of Sciences (2005), she was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2008. | |||