Nature-based Solutions Initiative

Nathalie Seddon is an ecologist, science communicator, and adviser to governments and businesses whose work is grounded in a lifelong love of the natural world. She is Professor of Biodiversity and Founding Director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative, jointly based in the Departments of Biology and Geography within the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment at University of Oxford. She also directs the Agile Initiative, serves on the leadership team of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, and is a Senior Research Fellow at both Wadham College and the Oxford Martin School.

She is co-founder of the charity I Stand Beside and non-executive Director of the Oxford University social venture Nature-based Insights Ltd.

Trained as an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Cambridge, Nathalie has more than 25 years of research experience across ecosystems worldwide. Her early work, supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, examined the evolution of animal communication and the origins and maintenance of biodiversity in the tropics. Her current research is highly interdisciplinary, with a focus on transforming nature-based solutions through relational and transdisciplinary approaches that connect ecology, the social sciences, Indigenous and local knowledge systems, and the arts. A central question animating her work is how societies might renew cultures of care for the living world.

Nathalie regularly advises governments and the private sector on nature-based solutions, emphasising approaches that safeguard biodiversity and enhance human wellbeing. She served on the Adaptation Committee of the UK Climate Change Committee from 2022 to 2025 and is a Trustee of the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance. From 2022 to 2023, she was Academic Co-Lead for the UK’s first People’s Assembly for Nature, and in 2024, she received the Marsh Prize for Ecology.

For enquires or to arrange a meeting, please contact zahra.khan@biology.ox.ac.uk