World Resources Institute Elects Gretchen Long, Dr. Diana H. Wall to Board

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has elected two new members to its board of directors: Gretchen Long, and Dr. Diana H. Wall.

Gretchen Long is a distinguished leader in conservation. Dr. Diana H. Wall is an environmental scientist dedicated to research, education, and science communication.

“We are eager to have these newest board members join WRI,” said WRI President Jonathan Lash. “Their commitments to conservation and science will be valuable additions to our global efforts.”

Ms. Long and Dr. Wall will join four recent additions to WRI’s board. In August 2005, WRI welcomed: Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil; Al Gore, former vice president of the United States; Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the minister of finance for the Federal Republic of Nigeria; and Lee Thomas, former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A graduate of the Harvard Business School, Gretchen Long spent her professional career as a partner of an executive search consulting firm in New York. While she was raised in New England, Ms. Long has developed an abiding love of the West, and has been involved with the foremost environmental challenges of the nation.
 
In 1993, Ms. Long moved to Wilson, Wyoming to concentrate on her conservation interests. At that time, she was the chair of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (1988-1995). She has also served as trustee and vice chair of Environmental Defense (1982-2000); as the chair of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies (1993-2000), where she continues as honorary trustee; as trustee and chair of the National Outdoor Leadership School (1994-2000); and as trustee of both Rails to Trails and the Teton Science School.
 
In 2000, Ms. Long served as a member of the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Panel on Emerging Technological Alternatives to Incineration. She also was a founder and chair of the Murie Center (1997-2004). Since 1996, she has been a trustee, and four-year chair, of the National Parks Conservation Association, and currently is also on the boards of the Land Trust Alliance, the Sonoran Institute, and Scenic Hudson.

Dr. Diana H. Wall is an environmental scientist and soil ecologist working on research, education and communication in scientific issues. She conducts research from the tropics to the Antarctic Dry Valleys to determine how biodiversity contributes to healthy, productive soils and to society, as well as the impacts of human activities on soil sustainability. She is professor and senior research scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Lab at Colorado State University.

She has been president of the Ecological Society of America, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Intersociety Consortium for Plant Protection, the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, the Society of Nematologists, and chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents.

Dr. Wall was a co-lead author of a chapter for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA); is a member of the U.S. National Commission of UNESCO; and was chair of the International Biodiversity Year (2001-2003), a Diversitas project. She chaired the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment Committee on Soil and Sediment Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning for five years and edited the volume, “Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Soils and Sediments” (2004, Island Press). She is a co-chair of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program.

The terms of four WRI board members - Frances Beinecke, Julia Marton-Lefevre, David Buzzelli, and Michael Deland - expire this week.

A complete list of WRI’s board members can be found at http://staff.wri.org/board.cfm.