Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES)

Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES)

Brown University, Providence, RI 

Brown University seeks an accomplished academic leader to serve as Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES). We seek a candidate to develop and implement a vision for the next phase of growth in IBES. IBES has grown substantially since its founding, and further growth in faculty and programs is envisioned in the coming years. The Institute occupies a relatively unique position in the higher education landscape as a university-wide Institute with a growing number of centrally-funded faculty lines that allow it to recruit across disciplines. A successful candidate will be a scholar qualified for appointment at the full-professor level in any tenure-granting unit at Brown, with a record of administrative leadership and fundraising experience, an outstanding record of scholarly achievement, an active research agenda, excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching and advising, and a demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion. 

Founded in 2014 to consolidate and build campus-wide research and teaching expertise on the environment, IBES reports directly to the Provost and anchors activities in the Sustaining Life on Earth focal area of Brown’s Building on Distinction strategic plan. IBES’s research and education programs stem from the combination of multiple disciplinary approaches to pressing environmental problems. Tenure track faculty with joint appointments in IBES and disciplinary departments join with lecturers, research faculty, and faculty of the practice to create knowledge, educate students, and have local to global impact. 

Through fundraising to date in the Brown Together campaign, IBES has dramatically expanded its core faculty roster, postdoctoral fellows, and centrally-funded research and outreach activities. It now includes 24 core faculty, many with additional appointments in the Departments of Anthropology; Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences; Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology; History; and Sociology. An additional 40 faculty hold affiliated appointments at the Institute, spanning all the divisions of the university (humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, life and medical sciences). Graduate student affiliates number over 75, similarly represent PhD programs across campus, and are well-represented in Brown’s Open Graduate Education program. The Institute’s undergraduate programs in environmental studies and sciences have rapidly grown, and attract more concentrators (majors) every year. The Institute, and faculty within it, collaborates with and contributes to other interdisciplinary centers of excellence on campus, including the Population Studies and Training Center, Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the School of Public Health, and the Brown Arts Institute.

Applicants should submit materials via Interfolio ( http://apply.interfolio.com/94533 ). Please submit a cover letter and a current curriculum vitae.  The cover letter should describe research and teaching qualifications as well as leadership experience. The cover letter should also explicitly address how the candidate’s commitment to diversity and inclusion has informed current and past work. Candidates should submit the names and contact information of five references whom the search committee may contact later in the process but should not submit letters at this time. The review of applications will begin on October 15, 2021, but applications will be accepted and considered until the position is filled or the search is closed.