William H. Schlesinger is James B. Duke Professor in the Department of Botany at Duke University, and he holds a joint appointment in the Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences of the Nicholas School of the Environment. Completing his A.B. at Dartmouth (1972), and Ph.D. at Cornell (1976), he joined the faculty at Duke in 1980. He is the author or coauthor of over 125 scientific papers and the widely-adopted textbook Biogeochemistry: An analysis of global change (Academic Press, 2nd ed. 1997). He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.

Currently, Schlesinger focuses his research on the role of soils in the global carbon cycle. He is the principal investigator for the Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) Experiment in the Duke Forest--a project that aims to understand how an entire forest ecosystem (vegetation and soils) will respond to growth in elevated CO2. He has also worked extensively in desert ecosystems and their response to global change-often leading to the degradation of soils and regional desertification. Currently, he serves as Principal Investigator for the NSF-sponsored program of Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) at the Jornada Basin in southern New Mexico. His past work has taken him to diverse habitats, ranging from Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia to the Mojave Desert of California. His research has been featured on NOVA, CNN, NPR, and on the pages of Discover, National Geographic, The New York Times, and Scientific American.

Schlesinger has testified before U.S. House and Senate Committees on a variety of environmental issues, including preservation of desert habitats and global climate change. He is a member of the Committee on Global Change Research of the National Academy of Sciences and the White House "Blue Ribbon" Panel for National Climate Assessment. Schlesinger also serves as Vice President for Finance and Investments for the Ecological Society of America.