Laureates by Category

Dr. Ramanathan is a Distinguished Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD. In the 1970s, he discovered the greenhouse effect of CFCs and numerous other manmade trace gases, and forecasted in 1980 that global warming would be detectable by the year 2000. He, along with Paul Crutzen, led an international team that first…

Dr. Van der Leeuw has spent his career studying human-environment relations and invention and innovation in society, applying the lessons learned from history to help understand why humanity is not facing up to the long-term issue of environmental change.

He works at Arizona State University as Dean of the School of Sustainability and…

Russian scientist Dr. Olga Speranskaya has been garnering headlines worldwide for her work to reduce the harmful impact of toxic chemicals in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.  
            
Many former Soviet countries are home to vast stockpiles of…

After earning a degree in engineering, a doctorate in Earth Science and a professorship at Queens College and Columbia University, Dr. Taro Takahashi is now a Senior Scholar at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

Dr. Takahashi has devoted five decades of his life to discovering how carbon cycles through oceans,…

Janine Benyus is the Co-founder of Biomimicry 3.8. She is a biologist, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Since the book’s 1997 release, Janine’s work as a global thought leader has evolved the practice of biomimicry from a meme to a movement, inspiring clients and innovators…

Dr. Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior scientist from Sudan, is at the forefront of global research on climate change. A leading author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, she has produced groundbreaking work on global warming - the defining challenge of our era - in Africa, with an emphasis on northern and eastern…

Dr Tewolde Berhan was born on 19 February 1940 in a small village near Adwa town in Tigray Region of northern Ethiopia. His father was an Orthodox priest and his mother the daughter of one of the founders of the Lutheran Church of Mekane Yesus who had originally been trained for priesthood in the Orthodox church. Both parents put a strong…

Julia Carabias Lillo coordinated a research and rural development programme in extremely impoverished peasant communities in the four regions of Mexico called the 'Integrated Use of Natural Resources' (PAIR the acronym in Spanish).

She was a member of the Commission for Developing Countries and Global Change, which published the report…