Jessica Hellmann is the Executive Director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and the Ecolab Chair in Environmental Leadership. As director, she provides strategic leadership for the Institute, a mission-based organization working to help build a future where people and planet prosper together. Hellmann also is the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Chair in Excellence in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior in the College of Biological Sciences, where her research focuses on global change ecology, climate adaptation and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.