Dr. Dave Hole’s research focuses on understanding the role that ecosystems — and the biodiversity that underpins them — play in supporting sustainable development.

Dave Hole leads Conservation International’s Global Solutions Team within the Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science. His team focuses on conducting novel analyses that identify and evaluate nature’s contributions to human wellbeing, with a particular focus on mitigating and adapting to climate change, through natural climate solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation. The team turns scientific insights into public and private sector solutions, targeting both policy recommendations and on-the-ground implementation.

Much of Hole’s research has focused on climate change impacts on species and ecosystems, and the role of protected areas in supporting species persistence in an uncertain, dynamic future. More recently he has begun exploring the ways in which nature underpins the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and pathways to global sustainability that maintain a ‘safe-operating-space’ for Earth’s ecosystems.

A native of the UK, Hole joined Conservation International in 2008, after completing a Ph.D. at the University of Oxford and post-doctoral work at both Oxford and Durham Universities. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and book chapters on subjects ranging from lipid metabolism, to house sparrow genetics, to climate change and its potential impacts on biodiversity and people.