Volker Radeloff is among the eight UW–Madison faculty awarded 2024-25 WARF Named Professorships. The professorships come with $100,000 and honor faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors, but also as a result of their teaching and service activities. Award recipients choose the names associated with their professorships.

Volker Radeloff, Margaret Murie Professor of Biodiversity Conservation in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, studies how rapid land use and climate change affect biodiversity and wild places around the globe. He analyzes satellite images to map species’ habitats and biodiversity hotspots, monitor conservation threats, and plan conservation actions. His international research has taken him to places like the Caucasus, Mongolia, Patagonia, Tanzania, Thailand, Yakutia and Yunnan. His research has shown how the collapse of the Soviet Union triggered widespread agricultural abandonment allowing nature to come back, as well as many new protected areas, and rapid changes in wildlife populations. As a member of the Landsat and the MODIS/VIIRS Science Teams, he advises the USGS and NASA on future satellite missions.

View the full list of WARF Named Professorships.