Do you care about climate change? Join us as we hear from Professor Merav Ben-David—how being the chief scientist for a polar bear study in the Arctic Ocean led her to run for the U.S. Senate in Wyoming.”

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"In late fall of 2009, I was sitting for an interview with National
Geographic on the bow of a Coast Guard Icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. I was the chief scientist on an expedition to study polar bears. According to NASA’s predictions, we were supposed to be breaking solid ice. Instead, we were motoring at full speed: at a time the sea was supposed to be frozen, there was no ice to be seen. The consequences of climate change were not abstract they were real. I realized that climate change poses a more immediate threat to Wyoming: as the world transitions to alternative energy sources, reliance on fossil fuels is rapidly waning, and with it, more than half of Wyoming’s economy. I realized we needed a new voice one that will help the state and the country make smart investments and diversify our economy today. I decided to run for the US Senate. I never imagined I’d be interested in politics. Most of my career has been devoted to research and training scientists and conservationists, and lending my voice to climate advocacy efforts. But we scientists, at our core, are problem solvers, and to solve the problems we face today we need a bold vision, one informed by facts, one with a long term view, and one that scientists are uniquely poised to lead."

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Merav Ben-David is a Professor of Wildlife Biology in the Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming in Laramie, where she joined the faculty in 2000. She has won numerous honors and awards for her work. Most recently, she became a Fellow of the Wildlife Society, and she received the Wyoming Chapter of the Wildlife Society’s Distinguished Service Award, the Wildlife Society Excellence in Wildlife Education award, and the University of Wyoming T. S. Harris outstanding faculty award. She received her Bachelor of Science and
Master of Science degrees from Tel Aviv University and her Ph.D. from University of Alaska, Fairbanks.