20 May 2019

IIASA Program Director to join University of Oxford

Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program Director Michael Obersteiner is embarking on a new endeavor and will join the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the University of Oxford as Director.

ESM Program Director Michael Obersteiner © IIASA

ESM Program Director Michael Obersteiner © IIASA

The ECI was founded to promote interdisciplinary research on the nature, causes and impact of environmental change and to contribute to the development of management strategies for coping with future environmental change. Obersteiner will be joining the ECI one-day-a-week from October 2019 to lead the institute together with Friederike Otto. He will join the ECI full time from summer 2020 onwards.

He joined the IIASA Forestry Program in 1993 and has been leading and developing the ESM Program, which is currently the largest research program at IIASA with over 100 staff, since 2011. His background includes the fields of global terrestrial ecosystems and economics, having completed graduate studies both in Austria (BOKU University and Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna) and abroad (Columbia University, New York and Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk). His research experience stretches from biophysical modelling in the areas of ecosystems, forestry and agriculture to economics, finance and integrated assessment.

Under his leadership several national and international organizations, including inter alia the European Commission, WWF, OECD, and other national and international institutions have received science-based policy advice using quantitative modelling techniques. He is author of over 100 scientific papers covering many disciplinary science fields.

“I congratulate Michael Obersteiner on this new appointment,” said Albert van Jaarsveld, IIASA Director General and CEO. “IIASA has shaped Michael’s career. He took part in the institute’s Young Scientists Summer Program in 1993, he was a research scholar in the IIASA Forestry Program, and since 2011, he has led and grown the Ecosystems Services and Management Program. We at the institute look forward to working with Michael while he remains at IIASA and in the future as he advances his career as Director of the ECI at Oxford University.”


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Last edited: 21 May 2019

Dr Michael Obersteiner joins leadership of ECI

On the ECI/Oxford website

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