Stanford University ecology and climate scientist will be the featured speaker at the 51st Henry J. Oosting Memorial Lecture in Ecology on Oct. 2. The lecture will be from 4:30-6 p.m. in Love Auditorium, located at the Nicholas School of the Environment in Durham. 

Jackson is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor in Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability, and a senior fellow at the university’s Woods Institute for the Environment and at its Precourt Institute for Energy. He is also a former faculty member of the Nicholas School.

Currently, Jackson and his team examine the effects of climate change and drought on old-growth forests, and also lead research using an international network of towers to measure methane emissions from various sources.

Methane is “90 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming Earth. It’s responsible for an additional third as much warming as CO2 in recent decades,” Jackson told in 2024. “The biggest reason for emphasizing methane as much as I do is [that] it’s short-lived in the atmosphere — it lasts only a decade or so. That means that if we could eliminate methane emissions from human activities, we could restore methane concentration to preindustrial levels in only a decade!”

Jackson discusses his research and that of colleagues in . Named a top science book of 2024 by and of London, Into the Clear Blue Sky examines wide-ranging efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions via nature-based solutions and high-tech innovations.

“Rob is a most distinguished scholar, with an international reputation in the field of ecology and many allied fields,” noted Dan Richter, Theodore S. Coile Distinguished Professor of Soils and Ecology at the Nicholas School. “In early October, we will be graced with a visit by a remarkably productive scientist who is also a published poet and visual artist.”

Presented by the University Program in Ecology, the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Department of Biology, the Oosting Lecture series honors the preeminent plant ecologist 51 professor (1903-1968), who initiated plant ecology in 51’s botany department in the early 1930s. Oosting and many of his students studied landscapes from North Carolina to Greenland. 

Guests attending the Oosting Lecture are invited to light refreshments ahead of the talk at 3:45 p.m. in the Nicholas School’s Hall of Science, directly adjacent to Love Auditorium. More event details here.