Dr. Gary E. Machlis is Science Advisor to the Director, National Park Service, and Professor of Conservation at the University of Idaho. Dr. Machlis has served as Interim Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Idaho, and been a visiting professor at Nanjing Technological College in China and at Yale University.

Dr. Machlis received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his Ph.D. in human ecology from Yale.

He has written several books and numerous articles on issues of conservation, including The State of the World's Parks (1985), the first systematic study of threats to protected areas around the world, and (with Don Field) On Interpretation: Sociology for Interpreters of Natural and Cultural History (1992) and National Parks and Rural Development (2000). Yale University Press will publish his co-authored book, Human Ecosystems in the First Urban Century, in 2009. He is currently at work on his next co-authored book, The Structure and Dynamics of Human Ecosystems.

At the University of Idaho, Dr. Machlis has taught courses in conservation, human ecology and environmental science policy. Dr. Machlis has received the Burlington Northern Award (1994) and University Teaching Excellence Award (1993), the University of Idaho's highest recognitions for teaching, as well as an education grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to combine art, ecology and architecture in innovative ways for students.

Dr. Machlis has conducted studies in over 130 US National Parks as diverse as Everglades, the Statue of Liberty, and Yellowstone. In 1996, his research program received a Hammer Award from Vice President Gore for its role in improving efficiency in government. From 1997-99, he served on the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of the President's Commission on Sustainable Development.

Dr. Machlis has been a leader in collaborative higher education. He was instrumental in the development of the nation's Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) Network, which includes 13 federal agencies and over 200 universities, and served as its National Coordinator from 1998-2006. For this work, Dr. Machlis was a recipient of the Department of the Interior's 2000 Conservation Service Award, one of the highest awards of the Department granted to private citizens.

Dr. Machlis is active in international conservation, and is a member of the IUCN's Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas. He worked in China in 1981 and again in 1986-87 on the Giant Panda Project for the World Wildlife Fund. Dr. Machlis helped establish the National Parks Science Scholars Program, with over $8 million in scholarships to students throughout the Americas. In 2007, he received the Special Achievement Award for the George Wright Society, the professional society for scientists and resource managers working in protected areas.

He is the founding principal of the Human Ecosystems Study Group, a collaboration of faculty and graduate students working on human ecosystems around the world.

He has served as an elected council member of Section K (Social, Political, and Economic Sciences) of the AAAS, and is currently a member of the AAAS National Committee on Opportunities for Women and Minorities in Science, and serves on the advisory board of the AAAS Center for Advancing Science and Engineering Capacity.

(October 2009)