lifestyle

In a wide SI announcement SI acting secretary for science Charles Alcock announced that Eldredge “Biff” Bermingham, 55, is the new director of STRI. “It is largely because of the STRI community of scholars and support staff that I had the confidence to accept the position of director knowing that as a team we will accomplish great science of extraordinary relevance” commented Bermingham.

Bermingham joined STRI in 1989 where he established a new program in DNA-based molecular systematics and evolution, and introduced a generation of young scientists to molecular tools used to study tropical biodiversity. Biff has played a principal role in expanding STRI's Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) into the cross-unit Smithsonian Global Earth Observatories (SIGEO), and promote inter-governmental collaborations associated with SIGEO.

Bermingham spearheaded SI's participation in the HSBC Climate Partnership, which uses the CTFS/SIGEO framework to establish large scale cooperative experiments that test pivotal ideas about climate change and global warming, including the role tropical forests play in the availability and quality of water provided to the Panama Canal under different conditions of land use. He has published more than 135 peer-reviewed articles and edited the book Tropical Rainforests: Past, Present and Future with Christopher Dick and Craig Moritz in 2005.

Bermingham has a PhD from the University of Georgia. He is married to Chimene Longwater, they have three children: Sara, 16, Georgia, 14 and Samuel, 10.