Adjunct Professor in NRES
NRES Leadership Award
The Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Science Leadership Award honors professionals who, through their vision, influence and persistence, create change that positively impacts Nevadans and the fields of natural resources and environmental science.
The Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Science (NRES) is very happy to present Jeanne Chambers with its inaugural 2021 Leadership Award. The Leadership Award recognizes people who have made outstanding contributions to the field of natural resources and environmental sciences. Dr. Chambers recently retired from the U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station after a long and distinguished career as a senior scientist and plant ecologist, devoting her work to the ecology, restoration and management of ecosystems across the Intermountain West. Dr. Chambers is currently serving on the Society of Ecological Restoration’s Board of Directors. She is also an adjunct faculty member in our Department and has contributed greatly to the department through collaboration, funding and mentorship. Dr. Chambers research has used ecological theory to inform restoration and management. One of her key goals has been to develop a framework for increasing ecological resilience to disturbances, and resistance to plant invasions in drylands. Over the course of her career, she has collaborated with multiple land management agencies that have adopted her Resilience and Resistance (R&R) framework in greater sage-grouse habitat in the Great Basin, which helped to prevent listing the bird as an endangered species. Her framework has also more generally enabled managers to prioritize treatments in ecosystems where they could be most beneficial. Dr. Chambers’ publications, communications and outreach have extended her work beyond the research community to directly influence management. Among her many activities, she recently organized and presented at a symposium at the 2018 Society for Rangeland Management Annual Meeting, where she described her multiscale approach for managing threats to sagebrush ecosystems. Over the course of her career, Dr. Chambers has contributed to hundreds of publications and presentations at conferences and professional meetings, and her research has also been featured on NPR and other media outlets. As an adjunct professor in our Department, Dr. Chambers has funded, mentored co-mentored, and informally advised many graduate students and has collaborated with several faculty members. She has also actively involved our students and faculty in Forest Service-sponsored outreach efforts, increasing the department’s connectivity with resource management agencies in the region. As a result of her engagement with our Department at many levels, valuable synergies have developed between our department and the Rocky Mountain Research Station - Reno.