My work

Where I am now

Current appointments

• 2025 —

  Adjunct Professor of Forestry & Natural Sciences Purdue University

• 2000 —

  Founder and CEO, TREE Foundation Tree Research, Education and Exploration

• 2024 —

  Travel expert and Explorer, National Geographic

• 2023 —

  Chair, Heroes of the Planet leadership team Voiijer

• 2019 —

  Board of Advisors, Scientific American; Science Advisor, Earthwatch Institute

Trained

Degrees and programs

• 1983

  Ph.D. Botany University of Sydney, Australia

• 1978

  M.Sc. Ecology University of Aberdeen, Scotland

• 1976

  B.A. Biology, cum laude Williams College, Massachusetts. Minor in Environmental Studies

• 2002

  Executive Management Certificate Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

• 2006

  Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship Program

Held

Positions, selected

Fifteen roles in the CV; these are the ones that changed what I could do.

• 2014 – 19

  Chief of Science and Sustainability, and Lindsay Chair in Botany California Academy of Sciences. The inaugural holder: ~100 research staff, stewardship of 45+ million specimens, a budget of about $7 million

• 2010 – 14

  Inaugural Director, Nature Research Center North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC — oversaw its construction, staffing and programs; Research Professor, NC State University

• 2003 – 10

  Director of Environmental Initiatives, Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies New College of Florida. Started its environmental studies program

• 1999 – 2003

  Chief Executive Officer, Selby Botanical Gardens Grew the budget from $2 million to $3.5 million

• 1992 – 99

  Director of Research & Conservation, Jessie Cox Chair in Tropical Botany Selby Botanical Gardens, Florida

• 2020 – 22

  Visiting and Adjunct Professor National University of Singapore; Arizona State University; Elmira College

• 2003 – 14

  Science columnist News & Observer and Charlotte Tribune, NC; Herald Tribune, FL

• 1983 – 89

  Co-manager, Ruby Hills Pastoral Company Walcha, New South Wales, Australia

Awarded

Fellowships

• 2018

  Fellow, Rachel Carson Center Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich

• 2013

  Fulbright Senior Specialist Scholar to Ethiopia

• 2011

  Fulbright Senior Specialist Scholar to India

• 2010

  Visiting Scholar and Research Fellow, Environmental Change Institute Oxford University

• 2018 – 22

  Research Professor Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang

• 1983 – 87

  Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship

Honored

Honors and awards, representative examples

The CV runs to about a hundred of these. Here are the ones I would mention.

• 2026

  Honorary Doctorate, Allegheny College

• 2023

  The Explorers Medal The Explorers Club, New York

• 2023

  Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize

• 2015

  Elected Fellow, California Academy of Sciences

• 2015 & 2014

  Honorary Doctorates in Science, and commencement speaker Elmira College and Wilson College

• 2014

  Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer Award

• 2014

  “Her Highness” The title E.O. Wilson gave me at his Biodiversity Symposium, as Sylvia Earle is “Her Deepness”

• 2012

  Invited to the White House Women and the Environment Summit

• 2008

  Elected Fellow, Wings WorldQuest Honoring women in exploration

• 2007

  Mendel Medal for achievement in science and spirit Villanova University

• 2006

  Lowell Thomas Medal for Biodiversity Exploration The Explorers Club

• 2005 – 11

  Elected to the Board of Directors, The Explorers Club And Vice President for Research and Education, 2007 – 09

• 2006 – 12

  Elected Vice President for Education, Ecological Society of America

• 2003

  Asteroid (10739) Lowman Named by Carolyn Shoemaker

• 2002

  Kilby Laureate medal For pioneering rainforest canopy science

• 2002

  Eugene P. Odum Award for Excellence in Ecology Education Ecological Society of America

• 2000

  Williams College Bicentennial Medal For achievements in tropical botany

• 1999

  Margaret Douglas Medal for Achievement in Conservation Education The Garden Club of America

Funded

Research funding, representative examples

Figures are as awarded.

• 2021 —

  Mission Green Raising $10 million to build canopy walkways and conserve genetic libraries in endangered forests

• 2013 – 17

  Students Discover, National Science Foundation Co-PI, $4,286,777, with NC State and North Carolina public schools — scaling citizen science into middle-school STEM

• 2015 – 19

  Church forests of South Gondar, Ethiopia — NSF REU $406,038, with Colby College

• 2015 – 19

  Wheelchairs and Waterbears — NSF REU $189,251, with Baker University. 3D access to canopy biodiversity for mobility-limited students becoming arbornauts and discovering new species

• 2017

  Genomic toolkit for the museum community — IMLS $490,799, with UC Santa Cruz

• 2013

  Church forests of Ethiopia — Picker Foundation $148,000, with Colgate University

• 2010 & 2016

  National Geographic Insect biodiversity, and herpetological biodiversity, in Ethiopia’s church forests

• 2005 – 08

  NEON senior design team Co-wrote the $350 million grant for the National Ecological Observatory Network

Taught

Teaching and mentoring, representative examples

• 2010 —

  Meg Lowman Treetops Camp Mentoring underserved girls each summer, rural New York

• 2020 —

  “Meet a scientist” More than 100 virtual sessions a year, begun during the pandemic

• 1994 – 2003

  The JASON Project Chief Scientist for the Amazon and Panama expeditions with Bob Ballard — virtual field trips that reached over 3 million students a year

• 1994 —

  Citizen-science field expeditions Including more than 35 summers teaching tropical canopy ecology in Amazonian Peru

• 2003 – 10

  Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies New College of Florida — canopy ecology, conservation biology, climate change, The Role of Women in Natural History, and field courses to Antarctica, Belize, Galápagos and the Amazon

• 1981 – 89

  Earthwatch Principal Investigator Ten field research expeditions in Australia

In the field

How it actually looked.

These came to me without dates or places. Rather than guess at them, they are captioned by what is in the frame — send me Meg's notes and I will put the real ones in.

Documented

Books, papers and lectures

Also written or edited

• Editor

  Biodiversity Survey on Penang Hill

  USM Publishers

  Malaysia

  2021

• Editor

  Ecology of Hopkins Forest

  Williams College

  1992

This page is drawn from my curriculum vitae, last updated August 2026. It is a selection, not the whole of it: the full CV lists every paper, every lecture and every grant. If you need that version, ask me.