Jan. 12, 2007 -- Renowned conservationist Robert L. Pressey will give the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor Lecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture on Friday, Jan. 19. Pressey is the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Visiting Professor this spring and as a faculty member in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning he is teaching a January Term class on the principles and practice of systematic conservation planning. During the semester he will work with Timothy Beatley, Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, and landscape architecture faculty member Miranda Maupin to organize a global conference which aims to bring together a group of the world's leading conservation planners for productive discussions with each other and with students and faculty.
Pressey is widely known as a pioneer of systematic environmental planning, a subfield of conservation biology that focuses on the development of comprehensive and structured strategies for environmental conservation. He created an influential framework for protected area prioritization and design that has been implemented in many parts of the world, including: Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Guyana, Namibia, South Africa and the United States. The C-Plan software he invented is used by major non-governmental organizations and governments alike. This software not only recognizes the importance of people as part of the natural landscape, but invites every stakeholder to participate in the process of balancing resource use and protection.
Pressey's current research program is expansive-both in scientific and geographic scope, and continues to push the boundaries of conservation science. He currently is a peofessor at the Ecology Centre at the University of Queensland. He has received numerous awards including the 2004 New South Wales Premier's Public Sector Award - Environment, the 2002 Royal Botanic Gardens Eureka Prize for Biodiversity Research that revolutionized the identification of priority areas for nature conservation, and the 2001 Edward T. LaRoe III Award from the Society for Conservation Biology for outstanding contributions to the conservation of biological resources. He serves on the editorial boards of Biological Conservation and Conservation Biology and has written more than 70 peer-reviewed journal papers.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Visiting Professorship was established in 1965 to invite distinguished practitioners to lecture and teach at the University.
Pressey's talk, "Conservation In A Changing World," will be in Campbell Hall, Room 158, at 5 p.m.
For more information contact Alice Keys at (434) 924-7019 or eak3n@virginia.edu.
Pressey is widely known as a pioneer of systematic environmental planning, a subfield of conservation biology that focuses on the development of comprehensive and structured strategies for environmental conservation. He created an influential framework for protected area prioritization and design that has been implemented in many parts of the world, including: Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Guyana, Namibia, South Africa and the United States. The C-Plan software he invented is used by major non-governmental organizations and governments alike. This software not only recognizes the importance of people as part of the natural landscape, but invites every stakeholder to participate in the process of balancing resource use and protection.
Pressey's current research program is expansive-both in scientific and geographic scope, and continues to push the boundaries of conservation science. He currently is a peofessor at the Ecology Centre at the University of Queensland. He has received numerous awards including the 2004 New South Wales Premier's Public Sector Award - Environment, the 2002 Royal Botanic Gardens Eureka Prize for Biodiversity Research that revolutionized the identification of priority areas for nature conservation, and the 2001 Edward T. LaRoe III Award from the Society for Conservation Biology for outstanding contributions to the conservation of biological resources. He serves on the editorial boards of Biological Conservation and Conservation Biology and has written more than 70 peer-reviewed journal papers.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Visiting Professorship was established in 1965 to invite distinguished practitioners to lecture and teach at the University.
Pressey's talk, "Conservation In A Changing World," will be in Campbell Hall, Room 158, at 5 p.m.
For more information contact Alice Keys at (434) 924-7019 or eak3n@virginia.edu.
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January 12, 2007
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