Lian Pin Koh

Lian Pin Koh (born 1976 in Singapore) is a Singaporean conservation scientist. He is Professor of Conservation Science, Technology and Policy in the Department of Biological Sciences, and Director of the Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions at the National University of Singapore.

Lian Pin Koh
Lian Pin Koh in May 2015
Born
Singapore
Alma materPrinceton University (Ph.D.), National University of Singapore (B.Sc., M.Sc.)
OrganisationNational University of Singapore
Known forConservation science, TED talk
AwardsWorld Economic Forum Young Global Leader 2013

Koh is the Founding Director of ConservationDrones.org, a non-profit organisation that seeks to introduce drone technology to conservation scientists and practitioners worldwide. He was formerly Chair of Applied Ecology and Conservation at the University of Adelaide, and Vice President of Science Partnerships and Innovation at Conservation International , a non-profit environmental organisation.

Throughout his career, Koh has received multiple awards including the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship in 2014, the Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship in 2011, the ETH Fellowship in 2008, and was also named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2013.

In 2020, Koh received a prestigious award from the National Research Foundation of the Singapore Prime Minister's Office under its Returning Singaporean Scientists Scheme. Established in 2013, the Scheme seeks to attract outstanding overseas-based Singaporean research leaders back to Singapore to take up leadership positions in Singapore's autonomous universities and publicly funded research institutes. Koh is the sixth recipient of this award.

Education and Career

Koh studied at Hwa Chong Institution (formerly the Chinese High School and Hwa Chong Junior College) for his pre-tertiary education in Singapore.

He completed his Bachelor of Science (with First Class Honours) and Master of Science degrees at the National University of Singapore in 2001 and 2003, respectively.

Koh obtained a PhD from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University in the United States in 2008.[1]

Following that, he received postdoctoral training at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland (ETH Zurich), and in 2011 he was appointed an Assistant Professor by the Swiss National Science Foundation.[2]

In 2014, he accepted a position at the University of Adelaide in Australia as Associate Professor of Applied Ecology & Conservation. He was subsequently awarded the prestigious Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (Level II)[3] and was promoted to full Professor in 2017.[4] Koh helped set up and served as Director of two University research centers: the Centre for Applied Conservation Science, and the Unmanned Research Aircraft Facility.

From 2018 to 2020, Koh took a hiatus from academia to join Conservation International.

In 2020, Koh returned to Singapore to assume the appointment of Professor of Conservation Science, Technology and Policy in the Department of Biological Sciences, and Director of the Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions at the National University of Singapore.

Research

Koh is an applied ecologist whose notable scientific contributions include the study of species co-extinctions[5] and modeling the environmental impacts of industrial agriculture across the tropics.[6]

His research focuses on developing innovative science and science-based decision support tools to help reconcile society's needs with environmental protection.[7] He addresses this challenge through field studies[8] and experiments,[9] computer simulations and modelling,[10] as well as by co-opting emerging technologies for use in environmental research and applications.[11][12]

Impact

Koh has published over 130 journal articles,[13] including Nature,[14] Science,[15] and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.[16] Koh is one of the most cited Singaporean conservation scientists. His research has received over 16,000 citations (with an h-index of >55).[17]

Koh is a pioneer in the use of low-cost drone technology for environmental applications.[18] He is Founding Director of ConservationDrones.org, a non-profit organisation that seeks to introduce drone technology to scientists and conservationists worldwide. ConservationDrones.org has received numerous awards and media coverage (>650,000 visits to its website).[19]

Koh was an invited speaker at the TEDGlobal 2013: Think Again conference in Edinburgh, where he spoke on the positive use of drones.[20] His TED talk has been viewed over 600,000 times by a global audience.

Outreach

Koh is a regular plenary speaker at numerous international meetings, including the WWF Fuller Symposium in Washington D.C. in 2012,[21] the Clinton Global Initiative University in Florida in 2013,[22] and the Intergovernmental Eye on Earth Summit in Abu Dhabi in 2015.[23]

He is passionate about the communication of Science to the public, as evidenced by numerous and regular features on his work by international media, including the New York Times,[24] Smithsonian Magazine,[25] Scientific American,[26] NewScientist,[27] the Telegraph,[28] among others.

Residences

Koh has lived in Singapore, Switzerland (Maur, Zurich), Australia (Adelaide) and the United States (Princeton, Seattle, North Bend).

gollark: The graph shows that it clearly isn't.
gollark: As this graph shows, though, it is already too late for Macron.
gollark: The level of optimism surrounding it is hilarious.
gollark: Macron is HIGHLY funny.
gollark: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAFHAJHSFBAHJSFBahskvb avakvnakjvasv

References
  1. "Meet the Team".
  2. "Swissplantscience: Home". swissplantscienceweb.ch.
  3. "Future Fellowships". www.arc.gov.au. 27 February 2014.
  4. "Lian Pin Koh | Researcher Profiles". researchers.adelaide.edu.au.
  5. Koh, L. P. (10 September 2004). "Species Coextinctions and the Biodiversity Crisis". Science. 305 (5690): 1632–1634. doi:10.1126/science.1101101. PMID 15361627.
  6. Koh, Lian Pin; Wilcove, David S. (30 August 2007). "Cashing in palm oil for conservation". Nature. 448 (7157): 993–994. doi:10.1038/448993a.
  7. Koh, L. P.; Ghazoul, J. (28 May 2010). "Spatially explicit scenario analysis for reconciling agricultural expansion, forest protection, and carbon conservation in Indonesia". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (24): 11140–11144. doi:10.1073/pnas.1000530107. PMC 2890708. PMID 20511535.
  8. Koh, Lian Pin (August 2008). "Can oil palm plantations be made more hospitable for forest butterflies and birds?". Journal of Applied Ecology. 45 (4): 1002–1009. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2008.01491.x.
  9. Koh, Lian Pin (June 2008). "BIRDS DEFEND OIL PALMS FROM HERBIVOROUS INSECTS". Ecological Applications. 18 (4): 821–825. doi:10.1890/07-1650.1. PMID 18536244.
  10. KOH, LIAN PIN; GHAZOUL, JABOURY (5 March 2010). "A Matrix-Calibrated Species-Area Model for Predicting Biodiversity Losses Due to Land-Use Change". Conservation Biology. 24 (4): 994–1001. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01464.x.
  11. "ConservationDrones.org". conservationdrones.org.
  12. van Andel, Alexander C.; Wich, Serge A.; Boesch, Christophe; Koh, Lian Pin; Robbins, Martha M.; Kelly, Joseph; Kuehl, Hjalmar S. (October 2015). "Locating chimpanzee nests and identifying fruiting trees with an unmanned aerial vehicle". American Journal of Primatology. 77 (10): 1122–1134. doi:10.1002/ajp.22446.
  13. "Lian Pin Koh - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.com.sg.
  14. Gibson, Luke; Lee, Tien Ming; Koh, Lian Pin; Brook, Barry W.; Gardner, Toby A.; Barlow, Jos; Peres, Carlos A.; Bradshaw, Corey J. A.; Laurance, William F.; Lovejoy, Thomas E.; Sodhi, Navjot S. (18 December 2013). "Corrigendum: Primary forests are irreplaceable for sustaining tropical biodiversity". Nature. 505 (7485): 710–710. doi:10.1038/nature12933.
  15. Bawa, K. S.; Koh, L. P.; Lee, T. M.; Liu, J.; Ramakrishnan, P. S.; Yu, D. W.; Zhang, Y.-p.; Raven, P. H. (18 March 2010). "China, India, and the Environment". Science. 327 (5972): 1457–1459. doi:10.1126/science.1185164.
  16. Phelps, J.; Carrasco, L. R.; Webb, E. L.; Koh, L. P.; Pascual, U. (15 April 2013). "Agricultural intensification escalates future conservation costs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (19): 7601–7606. doi:10.1073/pnas.1220070110. PMC 3651457. PMID 23589860.
  17. "Lian Pin Koh - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.com.sg.
  18. Koh, Lian Pin. "A drone's-eye view of conservation".
  19. "ConservationDrones.org". conservationdrones.org.
  20. Koh, Lian Pin. "A drone's-eye view of conservation".
  21. "Speakers | Pages | WWF". World Wildlife Fund.
  22. "CGI University 2015 - Agenda Day 2". Clinton Foundation.
  23. "Eye on Earth Summit 2015 to be held under royal patronage of The President HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan | Eye On Earth". www.eoesummit.org.
  24. Gorman, James (21 July 2014). "Drones on a Different Mission". The New York Times.
  25. Siber, Kate. "The One Use of Drones Everyone Can Agree on, Except for Poachers". Smithsonian.
  26. Platt, John R. "Eye in the Sky: Drones Help Conserve Sumatran Orangutans and Other Wildlife". Scientific American Blog Network.
  27. "Tropical forests axed in favour of palm oil". New Scientist.
  28. Wood, By Ian. "Palm oil boycott will not protect rainforests". Telegraph.co.uk.
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