Background
Heather Lynch is a quantitative ecologist and a professor at Stony Brook University in New York. She is the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences Endowed Chair for Ecology and Evolution and leads the Collaborative for the Earth, which facilitates university-wide research, education, and public-policy engagement around global environmental crises. Her research is dedicated to understanding the population dynamics of Antarctic wildlife, with a particular focus on Antarctic penguins and other seabirds.
Dr. Lynch’s research in Antarctica has been funded by a range of federal and non-governmental organizations, including through a US National Science Foundation CAREER Award. She was the first ecologist ever to win the Blavatnik National Medal for Life Sciences, the world’s largest unrestricted prize for young scientists, has been a AAAS Leshner Leadership Fellow for Public Engagement with Science, and is currently a Pew Marine Fellow for Marine Conservation. Her NatGeo Live show Penguins of Antarctica is currently on a three year tour of North America.