Walt Reid

Climate and Sustainable Development Advisor

Walt recently retired as Vice President for Environment and Science at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation where since 2006 he had overseen the Foundation’s work on climate mitigation, ocean conservation, and support for basic scientific research. Prior to joining the Foundation, he was a consulting professor with the Institute for the Environment at Stanford University from 2005 to 2006.

Walt was responsible for the creation of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which he directed from 1998 until the release of the findings in March 2005. From 1992 to 1998, he was vice president of the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C.

Walt is a member of the Board of Energy Foundation China, the Board Chair of Climate Breakthrough, and a member of the Advisory Council of Climate Lead.

He previously was a member of: the Board of the Climate and Land Use Alliance, the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services working group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST); the Board of “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity” (TEEB) project; the governing committee of the Policy and Global Affairs Division of the National Research Council; the Board of the Society for Conservation Biology; and the Board of Editors of Ecological Applications and PLOS-Biology.

Walt earned his Ph.D. in zoology (ecology and evolutionary biology) from the University of Washington in 1987 and his B.A. in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1978.