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Academic Qualifications

Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University

B.Sc. (1^st Class Honours) and M.Sc. in Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore

Research Areas

Conservation science, technology and policy; nature-based climate solutions; applied ecology; sustainability science

Research Interests

My research focuses on developing policy-relevant science and science-based decision support tools to help reconcile humanity’s needs with environmental protection. I am particularly interested in environmental issues in the developing tropics, a region where population growth is most rapid, yet the people are poorest, and where biodiversity is the richest, yet most threatened globally.

Biography

Prof. Koh brings 16 years of international research experience in the field of sustainability and environmental science, having worked in institutions across Switzerland, Australia and the United States.

He was formerly a Swiss National Science Foundation Professor at ETH Zurich, the Chair of Applied Ecology and Conservation at the University of Adelaide, and Vice President of Science Partnerships and Innovation at Conservation International Foundation. In 2020, Prof. Koh returned to Singapore under the National Research Foundation’s Returning Singaporean Scientists scheme to join the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of Singapore. He is also Director of the University’s Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions, which seeks to produce cutting-edge science to inform climate policies, strategies and actions in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region. Prof. Koh is one of the most highly cited conservation scientists in Asia, a TED-Global speaker, Founding Director of ConservationDrones.org and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Selected Publications

1. A Goldstein, WR Turner, SA Spawn, KJ Anderson-Teixeira, S Cook-Patton, J Fargione, HK Gibbs, B Griscom, JH Hewson, JF Howard, JC Ledezma, S Page, LP Koh, J Rockstrom, J Sanderman, D Hole. 2020. Protecting irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems. Nature Climate Change in press

2. A Lamba, P Cassey, R Raja Segaran, LP Koh. 2019. Deep learning for environmental conservation. Current Biology 29:R942-R995

3. JC Hodgson, R Mott, SM Baylis, TT Pham, S Wotherspoon, AD Kilpatrick, RR Segaran, I Reid, A Terauds, LP Koh. 2018. Drones count wildlife more accurately and precisely than humans. Methods in Ecology & Evolution 9:1160-1167

4. DS Wilcove, X Giam, D Edwards, B Fisher, LP Koh. 2013. Navjot’s nightmare revisited: logging, agriculture, and biodiversity in Southeast Asia. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 28:531-540

5. LP Koh, J Miettinen, SC Liew, J Ghazoul. 2011. Remotely sensed evidence of tropical peatland conversion to oil palm. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108:5127-5132

6. L Gibson, TM Lee, LP Koh, BW Brook, TA Gardner, J Barlow, CA Peres, CJA Bradshaw, WF Laurance, TE Lovejoy & NS Sodhi. 2011. Primary forests are irreplaceable for sustaining tropical biodiversity. Nature 478:378-381

7. KS Bawa, LP Koh, TM Lee, J Liu, PS Ramakrishnan, DW Yu, Y Zhang & PH Raven. 2010. China, India, and the Environment. Science 327:1457-1459

8. LP Koh & J Ghazoul. 2010. Spatially explicit scenario analysis for reconciling agricultural expansion, forest protection, and carbon conservation in Indonesia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107:11140-11144

9. LP Koh & DS Wilcove. 2007. Cashing in palm oil for conservation. Nature 448:993-994

10. LP Koh, RR Dunn, NS Sodhi, RK Colwell, HC Proctor & VS Smith. 2004. Species co-extinctions and the biodiversity crisis. Science 305:1632-1634