Campuses:
ProfessorEnvironmental science, policy and management; applied statistics; environmental leadership; research information and data management; frameworks for interdisciplinary research and education
Office: 325B Green Hall
Mailing Address: 1530 Cleveland Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55108
Office: (612) 624-7281
Mobile Phone: (612) 849-0641
Fax: (612) 625-5212
E-mail: stafford@umn.edu
Dr. Susan Stafford’s professional career is punctuated by a series of “firsts” -- first tenured woman faculty member in the College of Forestry, Oregon State University (OSU); first Faculty Associate to the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, OSU; first woman Visiting Division Director, Biological Sciences Directorate, National Science Foundation in Washington D.C.; first woman Department Head of the Department of Forest Sciences, Colorado State University; and first woman Dean of the College of Natural Resources, University of Minnesota. Throughout her pioneering career in education, research, and leadership, Dr Stafford has enjoyed a long association with the National Science Foundation’s Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTER) and served as the first chair of the LTER Information Manager’s Executive Committee (1980–1998). She as been a Co-Principal Investigator on the H.J. Andrews Long Term Ecological Research Site (during her tenure at OSU) as well as the Short Grass Steppe LTER Project while at Colorado State University. Among Dr. Stafford’s many honors are the Oregon State University Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award, OSU Woman of Achievement Award, OSU College of Forestry Aufderhiede Award for Teaching Excellence, and the 2009 E. J. Dyksterhuis Distinguished Lecturer iin recognition of outstanding research in ecology and natural resource management, Texas A&M University.
After nearly a decade in higher education administration at three Land Grant Universities, Dr. Stafford is now focusing her research interests in two major areas of emphasis: facilitating and understanding interdisciplinary research and education; and using visual analytics (computer visualization and animation) to aid in the flow and understanding of environmental data and information among researchers (ecologists and environmental scientists), practitioners (resource managers) and stakeholders (policy makers).
Most recently, Dr. Stafford has been working with colleagues from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria, and the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE), University of Copenhagen, Denmark, developing an international educational experience on Global Environmental Leadership introducing students to decision-making on critical environmental issues within the European Union's (EU) common policy frameworks.
Her primary goal is to prepare students to be the next generation of environmental leaders and equip them with the knowledge and skills that will be needed to address the myriad of complex, grand challenge issues spanning the biophysical and social sciences at a global scale.
