Thomas Dietz is Professor of Sociology and Crop and Soil Sciences at Michigan State University. He is also Director of the Environmental Science and Policy Program and Associate Dean in the Colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences. He holds a B.G.S. from Kent State University and a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California, Davis.

His research focuses on the human driving forces of environmental change (see www.stirpat.org) and on the interplay between science, democracy and the environment. He also has a strong interest in evolutionary process.

He is a National Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Danforth Fellow and has won the Distinguished Contribution Award of the Section on Environment, Technology and Society of the American Sociological Association. He chairs the U.S. National Research Council/ National Academy of Sciences Panel on “Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision-Making” and is past-chair of the Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change.