Dr. Robert Costanza is University Professor of Sustainability in the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University. Prior to moving to PSU in Sept, 2010, he was the Gordon and Lulie Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, where he remains a Fellow. Before Vermont, he was on the faculty at  the University of Maryland and Louisiana State University.

Dr. Costanza is also currently a Distinguished Research Fellow at Ecological Economics Research center New Zealand (EERNZ) at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand, a Senior Fellow at the National Council on Science and the Environment (NCSE) in Washington, DC, and a Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Center in Stockholm, Sweden.

Dr. Costanza received BA and MA degrees in Architecture and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering Sciences (Systems Ecology with Economics minor) all from the University of Florida.

Dr. Costanza’s transdisciplinary research integrates the study of humans and the rest of nature to address research, policy and management issues at multiple time and space scales, from small watersheds to the global system. Dr. Costanza is co-founder and past-president of the International Society for Ecological Economics, and was chief editor of the society's journal, Ecological Economics from its inception in 1989 until 2002. He is founding co-editor (with Karin Limburg) of Ecological Economics Reviews. He currently serves on the editorial board of ten other international academic journals. He is also founding editor in chief of Solutions a new hybrid academic/popular journal. 

His awards include a Kellogg National Fellowship, the Society for Conservation Biology Distinguished Achievement Award, a Pew Scholarship in Conservation and the Environment, the Kenneth Boulding Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions in Ecological Economics, and an honorary doctorate in natural sciences from Stockholm University.

Dr. Costanza is the author or co-author of over 400 scientific papers and 22 books. His work has been cited in more than 6000 scientific articles and he has been named as one of ISI’s Highly Cited Researchers since 2004. More than 200 interviews and reports on his work have appeared in various popular media. His article on “The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital”, published in Nature 387:253-260 (1997) is the second most highly cited article in ecology/environment. 

Specialties:  transdisciplinary integration, systems ecology, ecological economics, landscape ecology, ecological modeling, ecological design, energy analysis, environmental policy, social traps, incentive structures and institutions