James Buizer

Executive Director for Strategic Institutional Advancement, Office of the President, ASU
Science Policy Advisor to the President, ASU

Sustainability science; climate change impacts and adaptation; role of institutions in knowledge systems for sustainability; impediments to institutional transformation; boundary spanning organizations.

James L. Buizer is Science Policy Advisor to Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow and Executive Director for Strategic Institutional Advancement in the Office of the President. Mr. Buizer provides strategic advice and guidance on a broad range of topics to the President and other University leadership. He advances ASU through visioning, strategic direction, institutional positioning and the management of presidential investments, particularly those that are aimed at transforming ASU as a model for the New American University. As Director of Strategic Institutional Advancement in the Office of the President, Mr. Buizer oversees transformative design efforts and development of new interdisciplinary academic units across the University. Mr. Buizer has an appointment as Professor of Practice in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, where he focuses on institutional issues related to adaptations to climate change.

Upon arriving ASU September 2003 until July 2007 he served as Executive Director of the Office of Sustainability Initiatives in the Office of the President, where he led the conceptualization, design and initiation of the University-wide Global Institute of Sustainability and its School of Sustainability, launched fall 2006 as the first of its kind in the world. Prior to this, he served as Director of the Climate and Societal Interactions Office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Washington, D.C., where he was responsible for providing programmatic vision, design and leadership of NOAAs integrated, multidisciplinary research and applications program positioned at the climate and societal interface.

Over the years Mr. Buizer was also active in the efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Buizer represents President Crow and ASU on numerous boards and councils throughout the university as well as nationally and internationally. In his personal capacity he serves as Member, Panel on Adapting to Impacts of Climate Change of the National Academies of Sciences Study: America's Climate Choices; Member, Board of Directors, Second Nature; Member, Board of Directors, National Council for Science and the Environment; Secretary, Board of Trustees of the Tesseract School in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and as Member of the Carbon Offset Protocol Working Group, American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. He received his degrees in Oceanography, Marine Resource Economics, and Science Policy from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.