New Director of the Center for Collaborative Conservation Named at Colorado State University

The Warner College of Natural Resources at Colorado State University named Robin Reid as the director of the new Center for Collaborative Conservation. She will start Jan. 1, 2008.

"As a widely respected scientist, Dr. Reid will provide vision and leadership to the newly created Center for Collaborative Conservation. Under her guidance, the center will provide new ideas and more outreach opportunities ranging from local to international that focus on the conservation and sustainability of natural resources," said Joseph O’Leary, dean of the Warner College of Natural Resources.

Reid is currently a principal ecosystem scientist and global project leader at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. In this position, Reid leads research, education and outreach on conservation and development issues in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the western United States.

In 2006, her team received the Consultative Group in International Agricultural Research top prize for the best innovative partnership in international research for their work with Maasai communities on improving livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in East Africa.

Under Reid’s leadership, the work within the CCC will further participatory and collaborative thinking and action about the sustainability of natural resources by linking human and environmental welfare in teaching, research and outreach in Fort Collins, Colorado, the western United States and around the globe.

In 2005, Edward M. Warner, renowned geologist, philanthropist and distinguished alumnus, donated $30 million to position the college as a global leader in research education. The establishment and endowing of the Center for Collaborative Conservation is one of the ways the College is leveraging Warner’s gift.

In addition to her current position, Reid has been a senior research scientist at Colorado State’s Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory since 2002. Since then, she has worked collaboratively with scientists from NREL to examine the sustainability of rangelands across the globe and wildlife responses to humans in the savannas of Kenya.

Reid, author and co-author of more than 90 scientific publications and five books, has mentored more than 40 undergraduate and graduate students. She also was selected as the top scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute by an international panel of peers.   

Reid’s professional affiliations include the Ecological Society of America, American Institute of Biological Sciences, Society for Range Management and the Society for Conservation Biology. Since 2005, Reid has been a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University in 1979, her master’s degree from the University of Washington in 1983 and her doctorate from Colorado State University in 1992.

-30-