Director of the Office of Research, Development and Knowledge Transfer at UWI, St Augustine
Professor John Agard graduated from UWI with a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Zoology, the University of Manchester with a M.Sc. in Pollution and Environmental Control and later UWI with a Ph.D. in Zoology. He was the Head of the Department of Life Sciences for 6 years until July 2015 and is currently the Director of the Office of Research, Development and Knowledge Transfer at UWI, St Augustine. As Professor of Tropical Island Ecology his research interest in the field of sustainability science involves mainstreaming environmental considerations including pollution, biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation as well as climate change impacts and adaptation into the core of policy and national decision making.
Professor Agard was a Lead Author of the UN Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th and 5th assessments. He also currently serves as independent advisor on environment and sustainability policy to the Board of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington DC. Professor Agard has previously served as a member of the CARICOM Climate Change Task Force and as Chairman of the Environmental Management Authority of Trinidad and Tobago for 4 terms in which capacity he has overseen the development of the National Environmental Policy and several pieces of subsidiary legislation such as the Certificate of Environmental Clearance, the Water Pollution Rules, the Noise Pollution Rules, the Environmentally Sensitive Areas Rules and the Environmentally Sensitive Species Rules. Professor Agard also served as a member of the CARICOM advisory group on the Samoa Pathway for SIDS. He is also a Coordinating Lead Author of the Intergovernmental (Science-Policy) Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as well as being on the Scientific Advisory Panel of UNEP for the Global Environmental Outlook 6.
