Current and Recent Projects and Primary Leadership Activities

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​Recent Primary Leadership Activities: Discovering, sharing and using new knowledge.  Inspiring and empowering scientists and non-scientists.  Partnering with leaders across private and public sectors.  Championing science, the ocean and sustainability.

These activities all provide valuable opportunities for OSU students to engage, participate and contribute.

​Consistent with federal government conflict of interest policies, Dr. Lubchenco resigned from all of her committees and boards to serve in the Biden-Harris White House, starting in February of 2021.

2014 Climate One forum

• Reframing our understanding of the importance and potential role of the ocean. Scientific information tells us that the ocean is not too big to fail, nor is it too big to fix.  But because it is so central to our future, it is too big  to ignore.  The ocean holds keys to mitigating and adapting to climate change, achieving food security, stemming loss of biodiversity, addressing equity, and recovering from the COVID-19 economic crisis and creating good jobs.  This new narrative for the ocean provides hope and practical solutions. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/364/6444/911.full.pdf

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• Expert Group for the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. Science Advisor, 2018-2020. The Ocean Panel, is a collaboration of 14 sitting heads of state to simultaneously protect the ocean effectively, produce sustainably, and prosper equitably.  Lubchenco co-chaired the 80-member global Expert Group that entrained over 250 scientists to produce 20 scientific syntheses to inform understanding and action by the Ocean Panel; 2018-2020. For a summary, see https://oceanpanel.org, Five Priorities for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Nature 2020); for the final scientific report, see https://oceanpanel.org/ocean-action/people-nature-economy-report.html; and for the Ocean Panel's commitments to action, see https://oceanpanel.org/ocean-action/files/transformations-sustainable-ocean-economy-eng.pdf 


• The MPA Project. Founder and Project Leader; 2017-2021. (1) The MPA Guide: Global collaboration of governmental, non-governmental, and academic leaders (IUCN, UNEP, National Geographic Society, Marine Conservation Institute and others), to bring science-based clarity and transparency to Marine Protected Area (MPA) decisions. See The Introduction to the MPA-Guide: https://www.protectedplanet.net/c/mpa-guide; and The Graphic Guide to MPAs:  http://wcmc.io/GraphicGuideofMPAs  available in multiple languages (2) The MPA Accountability Project: with Dr. Kirsten Grorud-Colvert and collaborators to analyze progress on completing MPA commitments made at the Our Ocean Conferences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.04.003​

• Team-based, Rapid Assessment of Community-level coronavirus Epidemics (TRACE), Co-Founder, co-PI, member Board of Advisors, Feb 2020-2021; public-health surveillance project at OSU to determine the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in individuals and the wastewater of communities around Oregon and at OSU, and determine genetic sequences of positive samples. https://trace.oregonstate.edu

SARS-CoV-2 Illustration Credit: CDC

TRACE OSU campus testing Credit: Oregon State University

• ​National Ocean Protection Coalition. Co-founder and chair.  2014-2021. A coalition of over fifty U.S. not-for-profit organizations to promote the use of effective Marine Protected Areas in U.S. federal waters. 

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• Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS), Scientific Advisor and member of the Foundation Board, 2016-2021. Organized by the Stockholm Resilience Center, a collaboration between scientists and the CEOs of 10 of the largest seafood companies in the world is committed to improving ocean stewardship.   https://seabos.org/

• OSU’s Marine Studies Initiative. Advisor to OSU's President and Provost, 2014-2021; Work with MSI leadership to guide development of the initiative to integrate ocean research, teaching, and outreach across OSU’s 11 colleges.

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• PISCO: Harnessing Science to Deliver Knowledge in a Large Marine Ecosystem. The Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), established in 1999, provided a new opportunity for academic scientists across disciplines and partner institutions to collaborate to understand how the 

           nearshore coastal ecosystem along the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California works and is ​changing.  Lubchenco co-                 founded and then led PISCO for 10 years until she became Administrator of NOAA.  PISCO recently celebrated 20 years of                 ​    delivering innovative science that is key to informing management and policy. 
​           https://tos.org/oceanography/article/pisco-  advances-made-through-the-formation-of-a-large-scale-long-term

• Lubchenco is also involved in the activities of several not-for-profit organizations or philanthropic foundations on whose boards she serves.

Andrea Mitchell (NBC News) interviewing Jane, Aspen Ideas Festival 2010.

Jane and her son, Dr. Duncan Menge when Jane received the NSF Vannevar Bush Award, 2018.