Whendee Silver

Silver grew up in Southern California.^[3] She earned her MS in Forest Science from Yale School of Forestry in 1987^[4] and in 1992, received her PhD from Yale University.^[4][2]

Silver earned a B.I.S. in Environmental Studies from the School for International Training in 1982, before completing her M.S. in Forest Science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 1987 and her Ph.D. in Ecosystem Ecology at Yale University in 1992. ^[5]

Silver is a distinguished professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of California, Berkeley.^[6][2] With a focus on ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry, her research is often aimed at better understanding the soil system to mitigate the effects of climate change.^[2] A significant portion of her work has focused on tropical ecosystems, their soils, plants,^[7] and how nutrients and carbon cycle through them.

Silver is the lead scientist at the Marin Carbon Project, which she helped found in 2008. The The Marin Carbon Project applies scientific research to land management and studies ecosystem services such as soil carbon sequestration. Through this project she is working with ranchers, using compost for carbon sequestration on ranch land in California, greatly improving the soil's ability to sequester carbon.^{[8][9][6][10]}

• Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, 2009.^[11]
• Google Science Communication Fellow, 2011.^[12]
• Innovation Award from the American Carbon Registry, 2015.^[13]
• UC Berkeley Faculty Climate Action Champion, 2015-2016.^[14]
• Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, 2016.^[15]
• ESPM Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, 2017
• Fellow, American Geophysical Union, 2021^[16]

Silver's research on the biogeochemistry of tropical plants has been published in multiple academic journals.^{[17][18][19][20]} Silver's research was featured in the book Physiological Ecology of Tropical Plants by Ulrich Lüttge.^[21] Silver has over 145 publications as of 2018.