Past Program Managers

Dr. Tony Janetos received his M.A. (1978) and Ph.D. (1980) in Biology from Princeton University and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Utah and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He worked at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on acid deposition and later managed the EPA/ORD Global Climate Change Research Program. He joined National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) in 1990 as Manager of the Terrestrial Ecology Program and subsequently served as Branch Chief before becoming Program Manager for the NASA LCLUC Program in 1995. He also served as Program Scientist for Landsat and the Earth Observing System (EOS) AM-1 platform.

Tony later held senior leadership roles at the World Resources Institute and the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment, and directed the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland. In 2013, he became Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center and Professor at Boston University, where he later served as Department Chair.

A respected leader in the global change community, Tony contributed extensively to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments and to U.S. national climate assessments and served on numerous advisory committees. It was a profound loss when Tony passed away in 2019 while serving as Chair of GOFC-GOLD. The LCLUC and global change communities remember him with deep respect and gratitude for his visionary leadership and enduring contributions to Earth system science.

University and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Utah and the Harvard

The Program Manager is responsible for running the LCLUC Program, managing the various activities of the program, including the solicitations and funded grants and interfacing with other elements at NASA HQ, including those within the Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Focus Area. The program is designed to be a cross-cutting theme within NASA’s Earth Science. Aspects of Land-Cover and Land-Use Change research can be found throughout the Earth Science Programs, with an emphasis reflecting the program element under which they are funded e.g. hydrology, ecology or biogeochemistry. LCLUC research can also be found in the NASA Earth interdisciplinary science (IDS), and in various data initiatives e.g. NASA MEASURES. NASA Graduate Fellowships and New Investigators are often selected in the area of LCLUC and related research. The LCLUC Program has always had close program links to the NASA Satellite Instrument Teams pertinent to land-cover and land-use characterization and in particular with the Landsat Program, which is being jointly implemented with the USGS.

LCLUC Program is a unique research program within the USG, focusing solely on the role of Land Use in global and climate change research. At the interagency level and as part of USGCRP, the LCLUC Program is positioned to partner with other USG agencies on Climate Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation, as opportunity allows.

Land use change is pervasive and the focus of the LCLUC Program on pressing regional issues associated with land use change, gives the program a global, international reach. The program encourages strong connections between US and international land use scientists that can provide regional expertise and in depth understanding of land use change in a given area.