M S Swaminathan Research Foundation and Chennai International Centre collaborate to present the first Millennium Lecture for 2024!

We have Dr Julia Marton-Lefèvre, former Director General of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) speaking on ‘System Leadership for Systemic Solutions’ at 11.30 am IST on Friday February 2, 2024, at Sambasivan Auditorium (MSSRF), 3rd Cross Street, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai 113.

Lecture Title: System Leadership for Systemic Solutions

About the speaker: Julia is an expert in environment and sustainability and is the former Director General of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). Prior positions have included Rector of the UN-mandated University for Peace (UPEACE); Executive Director of LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development) International and Executive Director of the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU) now known as the International Science Council.

Julia has given hundreds of speeches throughout her career, written articles, op-ed pieces and contributed to several books. In addition to chairing the Board of Trustees of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, she is the chair of the Executive Committee for the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement; of the Donor Council of the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF);  the board of the Villars Institute Foundation, and the Strategic Advisory Board of IDDRI (the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations).

Her other board memberships include the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Bioversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Turkana Basin Institute, the Monaco Oceanographic Institute and the advisory board of TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). Julia Marton-Lefèvre was the Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholar and a Fellow of Davenport College at Yale University in 2016 and she continues regular links with Yale University’s School of the Environment. Julia also serves on the boards of directors of several other universities: Oxford University’s James Martin School, the Global Institute of Sustainability (Arizona State University), the Center for International Environmental Studies of the Graduate Institute of Geneva, and the Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative of Yale University.

Julia received the AAAS Award for International Cooperation in Science; and has been honoured as a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur as well as the Officier dans l’Ordre National de Mérite by the government of France and as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre de Saint-Charles by HSH Prince Albert of Monaco. She also received the ProNatura Award from the government of Hungary, the Presidential citation from the Republic of Korea and a Lifetime Achievement Award of the Global Council for Science and the Environment. She is an elected a member of the World Academy of Art and Science.  the World Future Council and the Royal Geographical Society.

She was born in Hungary, educated in the United States and in France, and having lived in several continents, considers herself a global citizen.

For further details, contact

Sangeetha Rajeesh
Director – Communications
3rd Cross Street, Institutional Area, Taramani,
Chennai 600 113, India
Mobile: +91 9841051489
Email: sangeetha@mssrf.res.in
Website: www.mssrf.org