Joleah Lamb

Dr. Joleah Lamb is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) where she leads the UCI Healthy Oceans and People Laboratory, an innovative and interdisciplinary research program that aims to benefit ecosystems and the services they provide to society.

Worldwide media attention associated with her research on disease outbreaks in the ocean has generated over 1,200 popular articles, documentaries and podcasts with an estimated reach of over 2.5 billion people, including The New York Times, National Geographic, The Atlantic, New Scientist, Time, The Economist, Newsweek, and Scientific American. Lamb is an expert science-based policy co-author on human-driven impacts on coral reefs for the UN Environmental Programme, and co-author of the new chapter on conservation biology and global change for the 2020 12th edition of Campbell Biology, one of the most widely used university-level biology textbooks in the US. She serves on numerous international working groups, including the IUCN and UN FAO committee on sustainable aquaculture and food systems, NASA program on ecological forecasting of ocean disease outbreaks, and the World Bank initiative to value coral reef and related ecosystem services to support human livelihoods in developing regions.

For outstanding contributions to transformative solutions-based research, communication and service in this field, Dr Lamb was selected as a nominee for the 2020 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius by the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability, an international recognition for environmental innovators and problem-solvers that range from scientists to communicators, sustainable business leaders and economists to social justice advocates under the age of 40. She was also elected as one of eight 2020 Early Career Fellows of the Ecological Society of America, the world's largest professional organization of ecological scientists with over 10,000 members.