Conservation scientist Mary Pearl had no plans to leave her 15-year post as president and executive director of the Wildlife Trust. But when a headhunter told her about the position of dean and administrative vice-president at Stony Brook University's new Southampton campus, Pearl couldn't decline. The campus features an innovative curriculum centred on sustainability and the environment, and the post was an obvious match given Pearl's long-time devotion to education and environmental stewardship. See CV

“She's driven by the desire to make a change in the world,” says Peter Daszak, who succeeds Pearl as Wildlife Trust president. “She has such energy and passion. Every day she asks, 'What have I achieved for conservation today?'”

Initially interested in the evolution of social behaviour, Pearl realized while studying primates that she found sustainability and conservation more compelling. “I was doing my dissertation research in Pakistan at a time when dams were silting up because trees were being cut down for firewood,” Pearl says. “I thought, 'I can study these monkeys, but the larger issue is, will they have a forest?'”

With a PhD in physical anthropology, Pearl began working at the World Wildlife Fund. “I had to talk my way into a job there, and the only job available was in corporate fundraising,” Pearl remembers. “But it became a great lesson in bringing in different people to solve problems.”

In her next position, at the Wildlife Conservation Society, Pearl developed an Asia-Pacific programme. Later, she became associate director of the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, a consortium based at Columbia University, New York, that includes the Wildlife Trust. Pearl also co-founded the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, a collaboration of Wildlife Trust with other organizations and universities. Conservation medicine examines the links between wildlife, ecosystems and human health.

At Southampton, Pearl will bring her zeal to a new audience. She looks forward to overseeing a new curriculum centered around not departments but rather issues related to sustainability, public policy and natural resource management. “This is tremendously exciting, to create a new model of undergraduate education based on issues of sustainability,” she says. “We will engage the bright and driven student who is interested in how our natural systems on this planet need to be managed. This is a serious enterprise, not some kooky experiment.”