Rosina M. Bierbaum, Dean
Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy

In October 2001, Dr. Rosina Bierbaum was named Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) at the University of Michigan. Bierbaum was Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from January 2001 through October 2001, and, preceding that, she directed the Environment Division at OSTP. She served as the Administration’s senior scientific advisor on environmental research and development, with responsibilities for scientific input and guidance on a wide range of national and international environmental issues. These included global change, air and water quality, endangered species, biodiversity, ecosystem management, endocrine disruptors, environmental monitoring, natural hazards, and energy research and development. She co-chaired the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources for the President’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and coordinated the $5 billion federal research and development portfolio in this area, including the Global Change Research Program. Bierbaum led several U.S. delegations to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and headed the U.S. Delegation for the U.S./China bilateral conference on Climate Science.

Bierbaum’s tenure in the OSTP, from 1993 to 2001, followed twelve years of service to Congress in the Office of Technology Assessment where she produced nine published reports on a wide range of environmental issues. Bierbaum received her B.S. in Biology and B.A. in English from Boston College, and earned her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. In 1980, she became a Congressional Science Fellow -- an honor that evolved into her twenty-two year career of science policy service in the nation’s capital.

Bierbaum was awarded the AGU Waldo E. Smith Medal in 2000 for her service to geophysics, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Protection Award in 1999. She is Vice Chair of the United Nations’ Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change. She also serves on the boards of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, the Federation of American Scientists, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, the Energy Foundation, the Design Committee for The Heinz Center’s The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems project and the International Advisory Board of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Bierbaum is on the Advisory Council of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program and on Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm’s Chronic Wasting Disease Task Force, and she co-chairs the University of Michigan’s Campus Sustainability Task Force.