Dr. John A Downing

John Downing is immediate past-president of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography and Chair of the CSSP Executive Board. He has participated in CSSP visits to Congress, and is a member of the Consortium of Aquatic Science Societies. He was a Regent’s Excellence Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, and the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University. He is Chair of the Environmental Science Graduate Program. He is also an adjunct professor at Itasca Community College where he is helping create a water quality technology program to provide employment opportunities to students in an economically depressed region. His research interests include limnology, aquatic ecology, terrestrial ecology, microbial ecology, biogeochemistry, population conservation, and whole ecosystem restoration and management. He has advised many policy-makers and citizens groups concerning water resources, global change, and global carbon cycling as well as science policy, and science education, and is a frequent consultant to firms and boards regionally, nationally, and internationally. He was formerly a professor at McGill University and the University of Montreal where he was Director of the Laurentian Biological Station and Chair of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council panel on Environment, Evolution & Ecology.