Rate My Professor Nancy Grimm

Nancy B. Grimm is Regents Professor and Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Ecology in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. She earned a B.A. in Natural Science focusing on ecology from Hampshire College in 1978, an M.S. in Zoology from Arizona State University in 1980, and a Ph.D. in Zoology from Arizona State University in 1985, followed by a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at Arizona State University from 1987 to 1989. Grimm joined Arizona State University in 1985 as Faculty Research Associate in the Department of Zoology and progressed through positions including Assistant Research Scientist, Associate Research Scientist, Associate Professor, Professor, and Regents Professor. She directed the Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research program from 1997 to 2016, served as Senior Sustainability Scientist in the Global Institute of Sustainability from 2010 to 2019, and Senior Scientist for the National Climate Assessment from 2011 to 2012. Currently, she is Interim Associate Director for Tenure-Track Faculty, Special Advisor to the Director for Charter Initiatives, Distinguished Sustainability Scientist, and Distinguished Global Futures Scientist. She co-directs the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network, the NATURA network of international networks on nature-based solutions for urban resilience, and the Earth Systems Science for the Anthropocene initiative.

An ecosystem ecologist and interdisciplinary sustainability scientist, Grimm investigates interactions of climate variation and change, human activities, and ecosystem processes in dryland streams and cities, emphasizing disturbances such as floods and droughts, resilience, biogeochemical cycles, and effects of stormwater infrastructure and extreme events on urban social-ecological-technological systems. Her pioneering interdisciplinary collaborations have shaped urban ecology as a subdiscipline and influenced sustainability and resilience research globally. Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2019, she is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2008), Ecological Society of America (2012), Society for Freshwater Science (2019), and American Geophysical Union (2017). Honors include the A.C. Redfield Lifetime Achievement Award (Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, 2023), Award of Excellence (Society for Freshwater Science, 2023), Sustainability Science Award (Ecological Society of America, 2019), and Arizona State University Regents Professor (2019). Key publications feature 'Global change and the ecology of cities' (Science, 2008), 'Biogeochemical hot spots and hot moments at the interface of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems' (Ecosystems, 2003), 'Integrated approaches to long-term studies of urban ecological systems' (BioScience, 2000), and edited books Ecohydrological Interfaces (2024) and Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (2009). She served as President of the Ecological Society of America (2005–2006) and Society for Freshwater Science (1999–2000), and editor for Earth’s Future, Ecohydrology, and Ecosystems.