Karen Seto
Biografia
Professor Seto is the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She is an urban and land change scientist whose central research focus is how urbanization will affect the planet. Her research is notable for its systematic use of big data and a scientific lens to study urbanization as a process and to understand the aggregate global impacts of urbanization.
Seto’s research has generated new insights on the interaction between urbanization and food systems, the effects of urban expansion on biodiversity and cropland loss, urban energy use and emissions, and urban mitigation of climate change. She co-founded and co-chaired the global research project, Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC), formerly of the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) and Future Earth, from 2006 to 2016. She was a Coordinating Lead Author for Working Group III of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report and lead the chapter on urban mitigation of climate change.
She has served on numerous U.S. National Research Council (NRC) Committees, including the NRC Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the NRC Committee on Pathways to Urban Sustainability. She was named an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow in 2009. She was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2017.
