Dr. Mary C. Pearl, Internationally Known Scientist, Educator and Not-For-Profit Executive, is the Garrison Institute’s New CEO
The Garrison Institute is pleased to announce that Mary C. Pearl, Ph. D. is our new Chief Executive Officer, effective August, 2010. She is an internationally known conservationist who served as the first Dean and Administrative Vice President for Stony Brook University Southampton, and prior to that was president of the Wildlife Trust for 15 years. The Garrison Institute is a not-for-profit, non-sectarian organization promoting evidence-based contemplative and transformational approaches to social and environmental change, including contemplative education (K-12), contemplative-based amelioration of trauma and vicarious trauma, and innovative climate change leadership drawing on contemporary behavioral and social science.
The Institute’s Board of Trustees unanimously elected Dr. Pearl as the new CEO. “We were thrilled to be able to select an organizational leader and scientist of Dr. Pearl’s caliber to lead the Institute,” said Garrison Institute co-founder and Board chair Jonathan F. P. Rose. “Mary’s proven ability to build and grow leading-edge professional fields and create systems-level change will help us take our work to the next level. Her inquiring mind and collaborative spirit will bring invaluable gifts of colleagueship to the Institute’s leadership councils, advisers, trustees and staff.”
“I am truly delighted with the opportunity to work with my new colleagues at the Garrison Institute to build on their outstanding and innovative record,” said Dr. Pearl. “We are living in a time of grand challenges in our society and our natural environment, where institutions and professional and academic fields will be required to exercise new ways of thinking and new approaches. The Garrison Institute is poised to play a leading role in this systemic transformation.”
As chief executive and Dean of Faculty at Stony Brook Southampton, Dr. Pearl used her deep understanding of ecosystems to help the University implement green majors and prepare students for environmentally sustainable careers. She also led an initiative to develop a sustainability core curriculum that incorporated contemplative practices.
Newsweek magazine described Dr. Pearl as a leading wildlife biologist who has “spearheaded the development of ‘conservation medicine’ – a scientific exploration of the links between the health of humans, wildlife and ecosystems.” During her long tenure as President of Wildlife Trust, a global organization dedicated to innovative conservation science, linking ecology and health, she helped build careers of local scientists and educators in 20 high-biodiversity countries around the world. She co-founded of the Center for Conservation Medicine, a consortium of Wildlife Trust with Tufts Veterinary School; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; the National Center for Wildlife Health; the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School; and the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation at Columbia University, where she also served as an adjunct research scientist.
Dr. Pearl is a member of the International Women’s Forum and of the advisory board of the Belizean Grove, both networks of leading women in business, government and the public sector. She served as member of the Task Force on Environmental Sustainability of the UN Millennium Development Goals Project. She is on the board of Shine Global, the Gomez Foundation for Mill House and Brazil’s Institute for Ecological Research.
Dr. Pearl has written a column, “Natural Selections,” for Discover Magazine, and is a member of Newsweek’s Global Environment and Leadership Advisory Committee. She edited the series Methods and Cases in Conservation Science at Columbia University Press, and is co-editor of Conservation Medicine (Oxford 2002) and Conservation for the 21st Century (Oxford 1990). She has published numerous scientific papers, is Associate Editor of the academic journal Ecohealth (Springer), and serves on the editorial board of Conservation magazine. She received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees from Yale University and holds an honorary doctorate from Marist College.
Dr. Pearl succeeds Diana Calthorpe Rose, who co-founded the Garrison Institute in 2003, and has served as its founding CEO since 2003. Under her leadership the Institute grew from a promising vision into an internationally recognized thought-leading organization with a professional staff, transformational social change initiatives advised by distinguished Leadership Councils, and a retreat program hosting about 40 diverse retreats annually. During her tenure the Institute’s program initiatives have become important hubs for shaping and advancing emerging knowledge networks and professional fields in key social change areas. To date about 20,000 people have directly participated in Garrison Institute programs and retreats.
Diana Rose continues to serve on the Institute’s Board of Trustees, which is also announcing the addition of two new members, Monica Winsor and Gina Sharpe. Ms. Winsor is co-founder and advisor to Inspired Philanthropy Group (IPG), Vice Chair of the global consortium of women philanthropists Women Moving Millions and Vice President of The William H. Donner Foundation. Ms. Sharpe co-founded the New York Insight Meditation Center where she serves as a Guiding Teacher and President of its Board of Directors.