Diana Liverman (born May 15, 1954, Accra, Ghana) is a retired Regents Professor of Geography and Development and past Director of the University of Arizona School of Geography, Development and Environment in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences in Tucson, Arizona.[2]

Diana Liverman
Born
Alma materUniversity College London, the University of Toronto, and UCLA
Scientific career
FieldsGeography, Climate change
InstitutionsUniversity of Arizona
Websitewww.dianaliverman.net/home

Liverman studies global environmental change and the impacts of climate on human society, including the effects of drought and famine on society, agriculture, food systems, and vulnerable populations.[3][4] She is particularly concerned with adaptation interventions that address climate change, what makes them successful, and when they create or reinforce inequality.[3] Liverman examines the potential for reducing the effects of climate change and at the same time reaching the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals.[4] In 2010, Liverman received the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, for "encouraging, developing and promoting understanding of the human dimensions of climate change".[5]

Liverman was a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) October 8, 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C.[6][7] Liverman was one of 19 scientists worldwide elected to the Earth Commission in 2019.[8][9] In 2020, Liverman was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[2][10][11]

Education

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Diana Liverman was born in Accra, Ghana[12][1] to British parents and grew up in the UK.[13] Liverman earned her B.A. in geography from University College London (1976).[14] She earned her M.A. from the University of Toronto, with a thesis on The coordination of response to drought in the Canadian Prairie Provinces (1979) with advisor Anne U. Whyte.[15]

Liverman did her Ph.D. work at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. She worked with Steve Schneider[16] from 1982 to 1985, receiving her Ph.D. in geography from UCLA in 1984. Her dissertation was The use of a simulation model in assessing the impacts of climate on the world food system,[17][18] with advisors Werner Terjung and Stephen Schneider.[15]

Career

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Liverman taught geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she was also affiliated with the Institute for Environmental Studies from 1984 to 1990.[12] She taught at Penn State University from 1990 to 1996[12] where she was the Associate Director of the Earth System Science Center directed by Eric Barron.[19] She moved to the University of Arizona in 1996 to become Director of Latin American Studies, retiring in 2022.[12]

In 2003 she was appointed to the first Chair in Environmental Science at the University of Oxford[12] and became Director of the Environmental Change Institute, a centre for research, teaching and outreach on the environment at Oxford University.[12]

In 2009 Liverman returned to the University of Arizona as co-Director of the Institute of the Environment with Jonathan Overpeck.[20] She remained in this position until 2016.[21] As of July 2019, Liverman became director of the School of Geography and Development in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona.[9][2]

Liverman was a co-editor of the journal Annual Review of Environment and Resources from 2009 to 2015.[22][23] She has served on several national and international committees including the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (chair, 1995-1999)[12] and the NAS Committee on America's Climate Choices.[24][25] She also chaired the scientific advisory committee of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (1998-2002)[12] and the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) program (2006-).[12] She was a member of the scientific steering committee of the Earth System Governance Project.[26] She co-chaired a transition team to create a new international research initiative, Future Earth, for an Alliance of international organizations that include ICSU, UNEP, and UNESCO.[27]

Liverman has served as an author and committee member for multiple reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),[28] including the October 8, 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C.[6][29][7] Liverman was one of the scientists who "contributed substantially" to IPCC reports that led to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC in 2007.[4] She has also reported on gender bias in the IPCC.[30][31]

She serves on the board of a number of organizations including cultural and creative sustainability experts Julie's Bicycle.[32]

Scholarship

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Liverman has made many contributions to understanding of the human dimensions of global environmental change. Her publications and research grants deal with climate impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, climate change and food security, and climate policy, mitigation and justice especially in the developing world.[4] She has a particular interest in the political ecology of environmental management in the Americas, especially in Mexico.[11][33]

Liverman worked on the human impacts of drought as early as the 1980s, and the impacts of climate change on food systems using early climate modelling techniques and crop simulation models. Having identified the limitations to modelling approaches, fieldwork in Mexico followed, examining vulnerability to natural hazards in the agricultural sector, and the potential impacts of climatic change on food systems. Liverman has also examined the effects of neoliberalism on Latin American society and environmental regimes along the US-Mexico border.[34]

In recent years she has focused on the international dimensions of climate policy and the growth of the new carbon economy, and is a frequent speaker and commentator on global climate issues.[35] She is a co-author of influential papers on planetary boundaries and Earth system governance.[9]

She has also led several major collaborative research projects, funded mainly by US and European agencies. In 2011 she was part of a group who briefed the Dalai Lama (2011) on climate change.[36][37]

Internationally, Liverman has raised awareness of the importance of the social sciences in understanding impacts of environmental change. The Royal Geographical Society credits Liverman with "promoting the idea that climate impacts depend as much on vulnerability as the physical climate change, and especially showing how changing socioeconomic and political conditions have shifted the patterns of climate vulnerability".[38] Liverman has carried out some of the earliest academic analyses of adaptation and mitigation, examined connections between the global north and global south, and investigated the challenges of sustainable development in a changing world.[38]

Honours

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Key publications

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Books

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  • IPCC (2018). Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty (PDF). (Diana Liverman, contributing author.)[9][3]
  • Richardson, Katherine; Steffen, Will; Liverman, Diana (2011). Climate change: global risks, challenges and decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-97344-4.
  • National Research Council (2010). Informing an effective response to climate change. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. ISBN 978-0-309-14594-7. (Lead author, D. M. Liverman.)
  • Ingram, John; Ericksen, Polly; Liverman, Diana M., eds. (2010). Food security and global environmental change. London: Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84971-128-9.
  • Biermann, Frank; Betsill, Michele M.; Gupta, Joyeeta; Kanie, Norichika; Lebel, Louis; Liverman, Diana; Schroeder, Heike; Siebenhüne, Bernd (2009). Earth System Governance: People, Places, and the Planet (PDF). Bonn: The Earth System Governance Project.
  • Castree, Noel; Demeritt, David; Liverman, Diana; Rhoads, Bruce, eds. (2009). A companion to environmental geography (PDF). Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-5622-6.
  • Marston, Sallie A.; Knox, Paul L.; Liverman, Diana M. (2001). World regions in global context: peoples, places, and environments. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-022484-2. (Multiple editions).
  • National Research Council (1998). People and pixels: linking remote sensing and social science. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. ISBN 978-0-309-06408-8. (D. M. Liverman and others).

Articles

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Diana M. Liverman". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e Harwood, Lori (28 April 2020). "Diana Liverman Elected to National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences". University of Arizona in the News. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d e Kapoor, Maya L. (19 March 2021). "Geographer Diana Liverman explains how to tackle the climate crisis fairly". High Country News. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d "Diana Liverman, distinguished climate change researcher visits ICC". Private Institute for Climate Change Research (ICC). Instituto Privado de Investigación sobre Cambio Climático. 3 October 2016. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  5. ^ a b Doster, Stephanie; Everett-Haynes, La Monica (1 June 2010). "UA Researcher Earns Prestigious International Medal". University of Arizona News. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  6. ^ a b "Authors and Review Editors". Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  7. ^ a b Summary for Policymakers, Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), nd, retrieved 8 October 2018, "IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty
  8. ^ Terry Collins Assoc (19 September 2019). "Earth Commission to identify risks, guardrails, targets for entire planet". EurekaAlert!. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Smith, Dylan (19 September 2019). "UA prof named to int'l Earth Commission studying climate, biodiversity". TucsonSentinel.com. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  10. ^ a b "National Academy of Sciences Elects New Members". News from the National Academy of Sciences. 27 April 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  11. ^ a b c "Diana M. Liverman". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hume, Lucy (5 October 2017). People of Today 2017. eBook Partnership. ISBN 978-1-9997670-3-7. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  13. ^ "Welcome | Diana Liverman". University of Arizona. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  14. ^ "Staff News". Geography Newsletter for former students. No. 9. 1998. p. 5.
  15. ^ a b Liverman, Diana. "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). University of Arizona. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  16. ^ "AIR Celebrates Diana Liverman's Election to National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences". Arizona Environment. 4 May 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  17. ^ Daily, Gretchen C.; Ehrlich, Paul R. (1990). "An Exploratory Model of the Impact of Rapid Climate Change on the World Food Situation". Proceedings: Biological Sciences. 241 (1302): 232–244. Bibcode:1990RSPSB.241..232D. doi:10.1098/rspb.1990.0091. ISSN 0962-8452. JSTOR 76666. PMID 1979448. S2CID 38014068.
  18. ^ Liverman, D. M. (1 January 1983). "Use of a simulation model in assessing the impacts of climate on the world food system". U.S. Department of Energy. OSTI 6922600. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  19. ^ "EESI History - Extended". Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. 24 July 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  20. ^ Stiles, Lori (3 October 2008). "UA Establishes Institute for the Environment and Society". University of Arizona News. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  21. ^ Davis, Tony (17 June 2017). "Renowned climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck leaving University of Arizona". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  22. ^ "Preface". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 34. 2009. doi:10.1146/annurev.eg.34.101209.100011.
  23. ^ "CO-EDITORS OF THE ANNUAL REVIEW OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES - VOLUME 40, 2015". Annual Reviews. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  24. ^ "America's Climate Choices". National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  25. ^ "Action needed to manage climate change risks -- new report". EurekAlert!. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 12 May 2011. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  26. ^ Biermann, Frank, Michele M. Betsill, Joyeeta Gupta, Norichika Kanie, Louis Lebel, Diana Liverman, Heike Schroeder, and Bernd Siebenhüner, with contributions from Ken Conca, Leila da Costa Ferreira, Bharat Desai, Simon Tay, and Ruben Zondervan (2009) Earth System Governance: People, Places and the Planet. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Earth System Governance Report 1, IHDP Report 20. Bonn, IHDP: The Earth System Governance Project. Archived 7 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  27. ^ "The Legacy of UA Researchers Shaping the Direction of Earth System Governance Research". Udall Center. 4 March 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  28. ^ Makansi, Kristina (8 June 2018). "UA Scientists Selected as Authors for International Climate Report". Arizona Alumni Association. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  29. ^ Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (Report). Incheon, Republic of Korea: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 7 October 2018. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  30. ^ Gay-Antaki, Miriam; Liverman, Diana (27 February 2018). "Climate for women in climate science: Women scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (9): 2060–2065. Bibcode:2018PNAS..115.2060G. doi:10.1073/pnas.1710271115. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5834669. PMID 29440422.
  31. ^ Liverman, Diana; vonHedemann, Nicolena; Nying'uro, Patricia; Rummukainen, Markku; Stendahl, Kerstin; Gay-Antaki, Miriam; Craig, Marlies; Aguilar, Lorena; Bynoe, Paulette; Call, Friedemann; Connors, Sarah; David, Laura; Ferrone, Andrew; Hayward, Bronwyn; Jayawardena, Shiromani; Mai Touray, Lamin; Parikh, Jyoti; Pathak, Minal; Perez, Rosa; Pirani, Anna; Prakash, Anjal; Textor, Christiane; Tibig, Lourdes; Tignor, Melinda; Tuğaç, Çiğdem; Vera, Carolina; Wagle, Radha (February 2022). "Survey of gender bias in the IPCC". Nature. 602 (7895): 30–32. Bibcode:2022Natur.602...30L. doi:10.1038/d41586-022-00208-1. PMID 35105992. S2CID 246473566. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  32. ^ "Board Members". Julie's Bicycle. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  33. ^ "Diana Liverman". Climate Justice Network. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  34. ^ Goth, Brenna (27 April 2011). "Q&A;: Diana Liverman". The Daily Wildcat. Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  35. ^ "Changing America". OpenLearn. Open University. 30 November 2009. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  36. ^ Goleman, Daniel (23 June 2015). A force for good: the Dalai Lama's vision for our world (First ed.). New York: Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-553-39489-4. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  37. ^ Doster, Stephanie (11 October 2011). "UA Professor to Meet With the Dalai Lama". University of Arizona in the News. Archived from the original on 8 June 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  38. ^ a b c "Professor Diana Liverman awarded RGS Founders' Medal". eSoGE News - School of Geography and the Environment. University of Oxford. 2010. pp. 1–2. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  39. ^ "American Geographical Society Awards Alexander and Ilse Melamid Medal to Dr. Diana Liverman at Fall Symposium" (PDF). American Geographical Society. 27 November 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  40. ^ Staff, A. A. G. (18 June 2014). "Two Geographers Awarded 2014 Guggenheim Fellowships". AAG Newsletter. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  41. ^ "Diana Liverman Selected for AAG Presidential Achievement Award". AAG Newsletter. 9 December 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  42. ^ "AAG Honors". Association of American Geographers. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  43. ^ Schmandt, Jurgen (11 October 2010). George P. Mitchell and the Idea of Sustainability. Texas A&M University Press. p. xxiv. ISBN 978-1-60344-217-6. Retrieved 3 February 2022.