Jim Buizer

James (Jim) Buizer serves as Interim Director of the Arizona Institutes for Resilience where he is responsible for its implementation and management. He is professor of Climate Adaptation and International Development in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, as Research Scientist in the Arid Lands, Water, and People Program, and as Faculty Affiliate to the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Global Change.

His research focuses on mechanisms to incorporate scientifically-based findings of projected impacts of climate variability and change into development decisions, and has worked in 20 countries across the globe over his career.

From 2003-2011 Jim served as Senior Advisor for Institutional Transformation to the president at Arizona State University (ASU), where he led the design and establishment of the Global Institute of Sustainability and its degree-granting School of Sustainability. Prior to ASU, Jim was director of the Climate and Societal Interactions Division at NOAA in Washington, D.C., where he was responsible for designing and leading interdisciplinary research and applications programs positioned at the climate and societal interface.

Jim serves as Immediate Past Chairman of the Board of Directors at Second Nature, Inc., on the Board of Directors at the National Council for Science and the Environment, and on the boards of several other national environmental non-profit organizations. He also served in numerous leadership roles for the production of the Third National Climate Assessment and was a lead author of the Climate Effects on U.S. International Interests Chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. He has published extensively on institutionalizing the science-to-action interface, integrating climate information into development decision processes, and climate assessments.