Professor Nathalie Seddon

Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Biology; Senior Fellow, Oxford Martin School

About

Professor Seddon is interested in understanding the origins and maintenance of biodiversity and its relationship with global change. After completing a degree and PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK, she acquired over 20 years of field research experience in tropical forests and other ecosystems across the globe, including ten years as a University Research Fellow of the Royal Society. She now advises governments, UN agencies and businesses on nature-based solutions to societal challenges. As an official 'friend' of COP26, she is one of around 30 global experts to advise the UK government on the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

She has broad interests in understanding the origins and maintenance of biodiversity and its relationship with global change. Her research now focusses on determining the ecological and socioeconomic effectiveness of nature-based solutions to societal challenges, and how best to increase the influence of robust biodiversity and ecosystem science on the design and implementation of climate and development policy.

In 2017, she founded the Nature-based Solutions Initiative a programme of interdisciplinary research, policy advice, and education aimed at bringing the equitable protection of nature to the centre of the sustainable development agenda.

She is a Senior Associate of the International Institute for Environment and Development and a Senior Fellow of the Oxford Martin School.