Professor Baroness Willis

She is also Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Biology and chairs the Board of Visitors for the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Her previous roles include Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Tasso Leventis Chair of Biodiversity in the Department of Zoology, Oxford, and founding Director of the Oxford Martin School Biodiversity Institute.

Her research is focused on understanding how biodiversity and ecosystems respond to environmental change across decades to millennia, bringing together long-term ecological records, climate, and other environmental data to inform conservation, land management, and policy. She has redefined ecological “baselines,” identified where ecosystems are most sensitive or resilient to disturbance, and revealed overlooked carbon stores and ecosystem service values. She also develops analytical and technological tools to map ecological value and to monitor environmental and disease risks in near real time. She has published more than 250 scientific papers and written several books for both academic and general audiences, including The Evolution of Plants, Roots to Riches, Botanicum and Good Nature: The New Science of How Nature Improves Our Health.

She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2018 for services to biodiversity and conservation, and in 2022 she was elevated to a life peerage in the House of Lords, where she sits as a Crossbencher. She is also a member of the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee.