Professor Jacqueline McGlade is a lecturer at the Strathmore Institute for Public Policy and Governance (SIPPG) at Strathmore University Business School.

Since 2000, Prof. McGlade has been a Professor in the Institute for Global Prosperity and Engineering at University College London, UK, and is the current Frank Jackson Gresham Professor of the Environment (2018).

Between 2013-2017, she worked as the UN Environment’s Chief Scientist, Director of Science and Chief Statistician, spearheading the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Indicator Development. She has also served as the Executive Director of the European Environment Agency (2003-2013); Director of the UK Centre for Coastal and Marine Sciences between (1997-2000); Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick (1992-1997); Director of Theoretical Ecology, FZ Jülich (1987-92); and Senior Scientist at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Federal Government of Canada (1981-87).

Professor McGlade is the founder of View the World, delivering virtual gaming and scientific software, and Downforce Technologies, home of EcoBalance, a land health accounting platform.

Qualifications and Awards

Professor McGlade holds a PhD in Zoology and Aquatic Sciences from the University of Guelph, Canada (1981) and a BSc Joint Honours in Marine Biology, Biochemistry and Soil Science from the University of Bangor, UK (1977). She holds a Private Pilot’s Licence, Advanced Diver Certificate, and is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (UK), Fellow of the Linnean Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Manufacturing (UK). She holds Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bangor, Kent and Keele. She is a Knight of the Order of St James (Monaco) for services to marine sciences. She has won several awards including the Masryk Gold Medal, and the Geospatial Industries 2013 Global Citizen for her work on open data and citizen science.

Research and Professional Interests

Professor McGlade’s current research is on natural prosperity and the circular bioeconomy (waste management, renewable energy, development of novel feedstocks), impacts of pollution on health (particulate matter in the air, plastics in the marine environment, and pharmaceuticals in soil and water), data analytics (earth observation, ecosystem modelling), development of traditional medicinal and food trees for improving nutrition and diets.

She is a pioneer of community co-laboratories amongst the farmers and pastoralists. She holds several key advisory roles including for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, China Council and the European Space Agency.

She has published more than 200 research publications and produced award-winning films and radio series. In 2017, she gave a TEDx talk on Building Resilience to Climate Change and was recently featured as the guest in the BBC series The Life Scientific. Her Gresham public lectures can be watched online. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline-mcglade-541a1178/

Family

Professor Jacqueline McGlade is married to Patrick Ole Letura, a local chief and wildlife guide. They have five children and a home in Ewangan, a traditional manyatta close to the Mara Wildlife Game Reserve and Sekenani, Narok.