David Lodge
David Lodge, Ludmilla F. and Stephen J. Galla Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame and a world-renowned expert on invasive species, has been named a 2014-15 Jefferson Science Fellow. The Jefferson Science Fellowship Program is designed to further build capacity for science, technology and engineering expertise with the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Jefferson Science Fellows spend one year at the State Department or USAID for an on-site assignment in Washington, D.C., that may involve extended stays at U.S. foreign embassies and missions.
Lodge is the founder and director of Notre Dame’s Environmental Change Initiative (ND-ECI), which focuses on the interrelated problems of invasive species, land use and climate change, and their synergistic impacts on water resources. He is one of the world’s leading experts on aquatic invasive species, and has extensive research experience in ecological forecasting and risk assessment, publishing more than 180 scientific papers.
Lodge has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress. He served as the first chair of the U.S. government’s national Invasive Species Advisory Committee in 2000-01, led research on freshwater biodiversity as part of the United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2000-05, and led an expert subcommittee providing advice to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on reducing invasions from the ballast water of ships in 2010-11.
Lodge is a member of the scientific advisory boards of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the International Joint Commission. He also has a long history of working with outside organizations such as The Nature Conservancy to help translate and transfer his scientific work to the public policy arena.
Contact: David Lodge, 574-631-6094, David.M.Lodge.1@nd.edu