Jill Baron Biography

Dr. Jill S. Baron is a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and a Senior Research Ecologist with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. Her interests include applying ecosystem concepts to management of human-dominated regions, and understanding the biogeochemical and ecological effects of climate change and atmospheric nitrogen deposition to mountain ecosystems. She is founder and Co-Director of the John Wesley Powell Center for Earth System Science Analysis and Synthesis. Baron was President of the Ecological Society of America in 2014 and is a Fellow of the ESA. She was named a Woman of Vision in 2015 by Colorado Women of Influence for her work advancing women’s role in science. Baron is active in US National Climate Assessment efforts, has given testimony to Congress on western acid rain and climate change issues, and was Editor-in-Chief of Issues in Ecology, an Ecological Society of America publication for non-scientists from 2009-2012.  She is founder and Principal Investigator of the Loch Vale Watershed long-term monitoring and research program in Rocky Mountain National Park, an instrumented catchment with 34 years of continuous records. As Director of the North American Nitrogen Center, part of the International Nitrogen Initiative, she works at regional to global scales to maximize benefits while reducing pollution from reactive nitrogen. Dr. Baron received her Ph.D. from Colorado State University in 1991, and has undergraduate and master’s degrees from Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin.