Elizabeth Losos

Senior Fellow, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University

Elizabeth Losos is a senior fellow at the Nicholas Institute. She is currently exploring how to plan for and optimize the environmental impact of infrastructure expansion in Asia, Africa, and Europe that is stimulated by China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Losos formerly was president and CEO of the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), a global consortium of universities and research institutes with the mission of promoting education, research, and the responsible use of natural resources in the tropics. Losos directed the organization’s four research stations in Costa Rica and South Africa as well as undergraduate, graduate, and professional field-based educational programs in tropical biology, conservation, global health, and environmental policy. Prior to her tenure with OTS, Losos was the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Tropical Forest Science, a global network of large-scale forest demography plots.

Losos holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton University, a master’s degree in public administration and international affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.