Karen Lips

Lips is a professor of Biology at the University of Maryland College Park. She is a field ecologist who studies the effects of global change on animal populations, communities, and ecosystems in temperate and tropical areas. A primary focus of her research is determining the ecological and environmental factors that influence amphibians’ response to disease and the cascading effects changes in amphibian biodiversity have on terrestrial and aquatic habitats. She is also interested in the broader impacts of biodiversity loss, including human health and global security and in increasing engagement on environmental issues, promoting scientific leadership, and fostering international scientific collaborations. Lips is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Ecological Society of America. Additionally, she is a Leopold Leadership Fellow, has served as a Jefferson Science Fellow at the U.S. Department of State, and as an Embassy Science Fellow in Colombia.