IE Brown Executive MBA

Stephen Porder

Associate Provost for Sustainability, Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology and Environment and Society

Biography

Stephen Porder is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, a Fellow in the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, and the Assistant Provost for Sustainability at Brown.  His research focuses on nutrient and carbon cycling in tropical rainforests, the implications (both biophysical and societal) of industrial agriculture in the tropics, and the potential for large scale tropical forest restoration.  He is also the founder and science lead on the radioshow/podcast Possibly, which explores everyday issues related to sustainability and airs on public radio stations around the country.  Dr. Porder received his BA in History from Amherst College in 1994, his MS in Geology from The University of Montana in 1997, and his Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University in 2005.  He joined the Brown faculty in 2007. He is currently on leave as the De Tocqueville Fulbright Chair at the Institut de Physique du Globe du Paris in Paris, where he is doing research, teaching, and writing a trade book about human caused changes to the earth system.