Thomas Crowther

Thomas Ward Crowther is a British ecologist whose research focuses on biodiversity science and climate change. After earning a doctorate at Cardiff University, Crowther held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale Climate and Energy Institute and later received a Marie Curie fellowship to study carbon cycle feedbacks on climate change at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology at Wageningen University. He began his professorship at ETH Zurich, where he established Crowther Lab, an interdisciplinary group examining how global ecological systems interact to regulate Earth's climate. Crowther has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, including 19 in Science, Nature, and Cell, and holds an H-index of 67.

Crowther gained international recognition with a study published in "Nature" that revised global estimates of tree density. By analyzing over 400,000 data points and correlating tree density with environmental variables, Crowther and colleagues estimated that Earth is home to about 3 trillion trees, significantly more than previous estimates. This research highlighted the potential for large-scale forest restoration as a measurable opportunity for climate change mitigation and influenced global policy discussions. A subsequent paper in "Science" on the potential for additional tree cover further emphasized ecosystem restoration as a climate solution. Crowther's work has informed international conservation and restoration initiatives, including the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the Trillion Tree Campaigns of the World Economic Forum, WWF, and UNEP.

In Crowther Lab, the team integrates satellite imagery with the world's largest set of ground-sourced data, including more than 30 million measurements of individual trees and 120,000 measurements of soil communities, to provide a comprehensive view of forest ecosystems and their carbon storage capacity. Crowther is also the founder of Restor, an online platform that connects and supports thousands of conservation and restoration projects globally. Restor.eco facilitates community-led restoration efforts by providing access to data and financing for local biodiversity protection. Additionally, Crowther founded SEED, a biodiversity monitoring tool designed to assess ecosystem health worldwide.

Crowther has received several honors for his contributions to science and environmental leadership, including the Rachel Carson Environmental Conservation Excellence Award from Applied Microbiology International, the Dandelion Entrepreneurship Award from ETH Zurich, the Founders' Prize from the British Ecological Society, and the Young Global Leader Award from the World Economic Forum. Restor launched as an independent not-for-profit organization and was recognized as a finalist for the Royal Foundation's Earthshot Prize. Crowther serves on the steering committee of the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative and the scientific advisory board of 1t.org, the trillion trees platform of the World Economic Forum. Crowther has also presented his research on reforestation and biodiversity restoration in a widely viewed TED Talk, introducing Restor as a platform to support global ecosystem restoration.