Jean Brennan

Jean Brennan is the Science Program’s Senior Climate Change Scientist for Defenders of Wildlife, "focusing on the challenges facing wildlife in adapting to climate changes caused by global warming. As an ecologist, Jean brings her expertise to help identify research and programmatic activities to help address the impacts of climate change on wildlife and natural ecosystems. She is an experienced population biologist and has conducted research on primates and small carnivores in Kenya and Madagascar, Asian elephants and other endangered large mammals on Peninsula Malaysia, and orangutans and proboscis monkeys on Borneo, Indonesia. As a member of the science staff Jean also provides scientific and policy support to Defenders’ international conservation initiatives.

"Prior to joining Defenders science staff, Jean worked as a Senior Conservation Science Advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Her work involved helping to design environmental programs to help conserve the biodiversity and natural resource management in many developing countries. She has also worked as a Science Officer for the U.S. Department of State, Office of Global Change. As a member of the Foreign Diplomatic Corps, Jean served as a member of the U.S. Delegation at international negotiations under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Dr. Brennan shares the Nobel Peace Prize for her "substantial contribution to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC."

"Jean received her doctorate from the University of Tennessee in population biology and ecology. She holds a Masters of Forest Science from Yale University and a Masters of Science in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. Jean has taught Air Resource Management at the University of California at Davis and Conservation Biology at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies. Jean is the author of the 2008 report, Reducing the Impact of Global Warming on Wildlife, a summary of the findings of Defenders' 2007 symposium on the same topic."