Amanda Thompson named permanent director of the Center for Galapagos Studies

The human biologist has been interim director of the center since 2023 and is also co-director of the Galapagos Science Center.

With over a decade of experience working in the Galápagos Islands, Amanda Thompson has contributed to strengthening the relationship between UNC-Chapel Hill’s Center for Galapagos Studies and the Galapagos Science Center — a facility on San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos that is supported by a partnership between the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Carolina.

Thompson is the Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Chair in Public Policy in the Department of Anthropology, a professor in the Department of Nutrition, and a faculty fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Trained in human biology and nutritional epidemiology, her work focuses on pathways linking early life social, behavioral, and physical environments to long-term health across a range of national and international settings, including North Carolina, China, and Ecuador. She is particularly interested in how early life nutrition and environmental exposures shape obesity and disease risk.

During her time as interim director of the Center for Galapagos Studies (CGS), Thompson raised over $2 million in sponsored research funding and gifts to support infrastructure, faculty and student projects, and community outreach, including a grant from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust to establish the Kenan Galapagos Fellows Program. The graduate students that make up this inaugural cohort span disciplines and have recently started their projects, which aim to help build healthy ecosystems on a changing planet.

Thompson is also committed to providing seed grants to junior faculty at Carolina who want to pursue new collaborative projects on the islands. She will continue guiding the growth of CGS with her vision for an interdisciplinary, solutions-oriented, community-engaged research center focused on social marine and terrestrial systems, as well as ecosystem health and island sustainability.

Thompson received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her MPH in Global Health/Nutrition and PhD in Anthropology from Emory University. She held a postdoctoral position at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and the Carolina Population Center before joining the anthropology department in 2007. She is the recipient of the 2014 Human Biology Association Michael A. Little Early Career Award and the 2019 Norman Kretchmer Memorial Award in Nutrition and Development from the American Society for Nutrition.

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In 2022, the Galapagos Science Center (GSC) and the broader UNC & USFQ Galapagos Initiative will celebrate its 10th Anniversary. We are proud to announce the World Summit on Island Sustainability scheduled to be held on June 26–30, 2022 at the Galapagos Science Center and the Community Convention Center on San Cristobal Island.

The content of the World Summit will be distributed globally through social media and results documented through papers published in a book written as part of the Galapagos Book Series by Springer Nature and edited by Steve Walsh (UNC) & Carlos Mena (USFQ) as well as Jill Stewart (UNC) and Juan Pablo Muñoz (GSC/USC). The book will be inclusive and accessible by the broader island community including scientists, managers, residents, tourists, and government and non-government organizations.

While the most obvious goal of organizing the World Summit on Island Sustainability is to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the GSC and the UNC-USFQ Galapagos Initiative, other goals will be addressed through special opportunities created as part of our operational planning of the World Summit.

For instance, we seek to elevate and highlight the Galapagos in the island conservation discourse, seeking to interact with other island networks in more obvious and conspicuous ways to benefit the Galapagos Islands, the UNC-USFQ Galapagos Initiative, and the world. We will seize the opportunity to further develop the I2N2 – International Islands Network-of-Networks. Further, we wish to highlight and emphasize multiple visions of a sustainable future for the Galapagos Islands and we cannot do this alone. Therefore, engaging the Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Tourism, the Government Council of Galapagos, the Galapagos National Park, and local Galapagos authorities, including government and non-government organizations and local citizen groups, is imperative.

The Galapagos Science Center on San Cristobal Island, Galapagos

Borrowing from Hawaii’s and Guam’s Green Growth Program and the Global Island Partnership, we wish to examine existing global programs that emphasize island sustainability and their incorporation into life, policies, and circumstances in the Galapagos Islands. We will also seek to enhance our connections with the institutional members of our International Galapagos Science Consortium and expand the Consortium through the recruitment of other member institutions. We will also work to benefit islands and their local communities by working with citizen groups as well as important NGOs who seek to improve the natural conditions in the Galapagos and diminish the impact of the human dimension on the future of Galapagos’ ecosystems.

Lastly, we will use the World Summit to benefit UNC & USFQ and our constituencies through a strong and vibrant communication plan about the World Summit, creating corporate relationships as sponsors, identifying funding goals through donors, and benefiting our study abroad program for student engagement in the Galapagos Islands. We plan to develop and issue a Galapagos Sustainability Communique after the World Summit that includes the vision and insights of all its participants for a sustainable Galapagos with applicability to global island settings.

We are eager to hear your perspective and have you join us at the World Summit on Island Sustainability!