ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director, Leah Gerber is heading to Ecuador for the 2017-18 academic year as a Fulbright Scholar.

Ecuador is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. At present, approximately 36% of the country’s mainland is designated as “Key Biodiversity Areas” by the United Nation’s World Conservation and Monitoring Center.

Dr. Gerber was appointed as a visiting faculty member at Universidad de San Francisco de Quito, and will be collaborating with Ecuadorian scientists in Quito and the Galapagos Islands on social-ecological systems and management institutions established to protect biodiversity.

During her sabbatical, Dr. Gerber will be working on her book, Knowledge production and sustainable biodiversity outcomes: a blueprint for leading change.

“My book will represent a ‘boundary organization practitioner’s guide’ to employing the practice of societally-engaged science, translational ecology,” said Gerber. “Through this work, I will describe the theory and practice of knowledge transfer within boundary organizations working in international biodiversity conservation at local to global scales.”

During Gerber’s stay in Ecuador, Beth Polidoro will act as CBO Deputy Director.