Leonard P. Hirsch Office of International Relations Smithsonian Institution Washington DC 20560-0705 USA Tel (+1 202) 357.4788 Fax (+1 202) 786.2557 E-mail lhirsch@si.edu

Dr. Leonard P. Hirsch (BA 1976 Pomona College, International Relations; MA 1978, PhD 1980, Northwestern University Political Science) is International Relations Specialist at the Smithsonian Institution. His responsibilities include articulation and support of the scientific programs of the Smithsonian, with emphasis on global environmental concerns. Particular concerns are in issues of biological diversity informatics, policies on access to scientific collections and research specimens, and bringing the wonders of the scientific enterprise to the many publics we all serve-from school children to decision makers.

He is a member of the White House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources of the National Science and Technology Council where he works on issues of bioinformatics and coordinating government research on land and seascape change. He is active in work with the UN Conventions on Combating Desertification, Biological Diversity (CBD), and Climate Change, and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

He is a member of the steering committee for the North American Biodiversity Information Network, and has been involved in the planning of the InterAmerican Biodiversity Information Network, and the governing board of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. These initiatives are developing web-based mechanisms for sharing and more effectively utilizing natural history museum records and data, which increase the importance and usefulness of any particular collection.

He is also a member of a UNESCO-CBD panel on environmental education and public awareness that is looking at effective modalities of informal and formal education to bring the main concerns of natural history museums to the forefront.

May 2001 by Leonhard Hirsch