Holly Gibbs

Holly Gibbs is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin.  She a geographer who studies how and why people use land around the world, and the associated consequences for the environment and global carbon cycle. She heads a team of staff scientists, GIS analysts, cartographers, and student researchers who tackle interdisciplinary questions around Land Change Science (www.gibbs-lab.com).  Gibbs has developed novel methods that combine Big Data, spatial analysis, Earth Observation/Remote Sensing imagery, and statistical modeling with ground-based information on social and biophysical conditions.  She uses this framework to improve our understanding of the causes, patterns, and effects of land use change at the global scale, and particularly of tropical deforestation in Brazil and of cropland expansion in the United States.  In particular, she has leveraged property-level supply chain data combined with field work and econometric models to evaluate the outcomes of the Zero-Deforestation Commitments for soy and cattle in the Brazilian Amazon.  Gibbs also works in the U.S. where she focuses on solutions for agricultural sustainability at local to national levels, and is particularly interested in the impact of federal policies on land and water resources (and lawns and how they can be transformed to grow more food and habitat!).

Gibbs was the 2017 winner of the College of Letters and Sciences “Deans Award for Distinguished Faculty Achievement”, named for Phil Certain and Dean Gary Sander. She previously received the Chancellors Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award (2016) and the University Housing Honored Instructor Award (2015).  In addition, she was the co-recipient of the Administrative Improvement Award (2016) for a student project.  Gibbs was a 2008 David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow in the Program on Food Security/Sovereignty and Environment at Stanford University.