Timon McPhearson

Timon McPhearson is an American urban ecologist, researcher, academic and author. He is a professor of Environmental Studies at New York University and the founder and director of the Urban Systems Lab. McPhearson is known for his interdisciplinary research on the interacting social-ecological-technological processes that drive urban system dynamics and impact human well-being. He is a research fellow at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and Stockholm Resilience Centre. McPhearson received the 2023 Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America.

Academic background McPhearson received a B.S. in Environmental Biology from Taylor University 1997, and then a PhD in ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources from Rutgers University in 2004. In 2008, he finished his Postdoctoral research in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) from the Earth Institute at Columbia University. including as a scientific advisor at Science Bulletins, an original production of the National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology (NCSLET), which is also a part of the Department of Education at AMNH.

In 2016, McPhearson co-founded the Future Earth Urban Knowledge Network, an international network of multidisciplinary researchers and innovators working on resolving cumbersome urban problems worldwide and served as co-chair until 2021.

From 2019 to 2021, McPhearson consulted for UN-HABITAT, CGIAR's Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, and from 2020 to 2022, McPhearson was a member at the NYC Mayor's Office of Resiliency Rapid Research and Assessment Initiative on COVID-19 and a partner at NYC Mayor's Office of Data Analytics and the mayor's Office of Policy and Planning, COVID Recovery Data Partnership.

McPhearson has been an adviser at the World Resources Institute, Ross Center for Sustainable Cities since 2020, an inaugural member of the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Global Commission on BiodiverCities since 2021, and member of The New School's Zolberg Institute's Cities and Human Mobility Research Collaborative since 2020 and Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School since 2016.

McPhearson contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) first global assessment as a contributing author from 2018 to 2020, and a lead author for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Academia From 2008 to 2009, McPhearson was a visiting assistant professor of ecology at Columbia University's Earth Institute.

From 2008 to 2016, McPhearson was an assistant professor of Urban Ecology at The New School. He was tenured at associate professor level in 2016 and appointed as full professor in 2021.

In 2015, McPhearson founded the Urban Systems Lab at The New School and serves as its director. From 2015 to 2017, he served as a chair of the Environmental Studies Program at The New School.

In 2017, McPhearson was a visiting research fellow at Humboldt University. He has also been serving as a senior research fellow at both the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and at Stockholm University's Stockholm Resilience Center since 2017. 2021 BiodivERsA Prize, “Enabling Green and Blue Infrastructure Potential in Complex Social-Ecological Regions” (ENABLE Project) 2020 New York City Climate Heroes Award, NYC Department of Transportation and Human Impacts Institute 2019 Sustainability Science Award, Ecological Society of America 2019 Innovation in Sustainability Science Award, Ecological Society of America 2018 BiodivERsA Prize, “Urban Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services” (URBES Project) 2017 Distinguished University Teaching Award, The New School