Smithsonian’s Dr. Elizabeth Losos is OTS’
new President and CEO

Elizabeth Losos, Ph.D., became the president and CEO of the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) on March 1, 2005.

In her new position, Losos leads an international consortium of 63 universities and research institutions and a staff of about 160 in training graduate students in tropics-related research at OTS’ three field stations in Costa Rica and partner sites in other countries.

“We’re going to continue to take tropical biology to the tropics,” Losos said. “By that I mean training biologists from tropical countries alongside North American biologists in the tropics.” She said OTS’ current partnerships with Latin American research institutions will be the foundation of that effort.

"Most of the plants and animals live in the tropics, and most of those remain unknown to science," said E.O. Wilson, a professor emeritus at Harvard University and author of such influential science books as The Diversity of Life and The Unity of Knowledge. "OTS is the premier organization in the world engaged in basic and applied research on this important and complex part of the biosphere."

"Under Dr. Losos' direction, we can expect to see this distinguished tradition continued and expanded," he said.

While making fiscal stability a priority, Losos also plans to explore ways to expand the organization’s graduate courses, research partnerships, undergraduate study abroad program and environmental policy initiatives.

Losos comes to OTS from the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Tropical Forestry Science, where she directs an international forest research network working in 14 countries on four continents.

“Liz brings a good sense of what’s going on in tropical forest research around the world,” said Don Wilson, the chair of the OTS board of directors and a senior scientist and curator of mammals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. “You need that perspective in tropical biology. You can’t just look at what’s happening in Costa Rica or South Africa or anywhere else, you have to see how results compare across regions.”

Losos takes over the helm of OTS from Donald Stone, a Duke University professor emeritus in botany, who was the executive director of OTS from 1976 to 1996 and interim CEO since 2003.

“We’ve got over 40 years of knowledge about the tropics built up at OTS,” Stone said. “For the last few years, we’ve been finding ways to apply that knowledge -- to forestry practices, to questions about climate change, to trade policy and environmental regulations.”