Lu Zhi

Professor, School of Life Sciences & Institute of Ecology
Executive Director, Center for Nature and Society
Peking University

Professor Lu Zhi is a leading conservationist in China whose research covers a range of interdisciplinary fields, addressing complex sustainability issues faced by the Chinese society while promoting its positive influence on the world. She is the Professor in the School of Life Sciences & Institute of Ecology and the Executive Director of the Center for Nature and Society at Peking University, the founder of the Shan Shui Conservation Center.

Prof. Lu is an enthusiastic environmentalist with a focus on field projects related to maintaining ecological balance, including research regarding the ecosystem services of forests and grasslands, developing natural history and conservation strategies for endangered species like giant pandas, snow leopards, Przewalski's gazelles, and Tibetan brown bears.

In recent years, Prof. Lu has focused on the interaction of natural ecosystems with human socio-economic-cultural systems and local community-based conservation studies, as well as studies on the impact of related policies and the effectiveness of conservation practices. In addition, her research includes the mainstreaming biodiversity conservation in urban and farmland systems and biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in the Murdoch and Yarlung Tsangpo regions of Tibet.

After earning her undergraduate degree in biology from Peking University in 1981, Prof. Lu went on to pursue her PhD in animal ecology from the same university and researched comprehensively on giant panda ecology and conservation in Qinling. She later spent three years in the United States conducting postdoctoral research on conservation genetics at the National Institutes of Health from 1992 to 1995 and took a fellowship at Harvard University's Center for Population and Development from 2000 to 2001. Prof. Lu also served as a visiting professor at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies from 2001 to 2002.