Resolution of Respect:Diana Harrison Wall (1943–2024)

Abstract

Diana Harrison Wall (Diana W. Freckman), leader of the field of soil biodiversity and former President of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), died on 25 March 2024, at the age of 80 in Fort Collins, CO (Photo 1). Over her extraordinary career, Dr. Wall was a pioneer in the field of soil ecology, revealing the role of nematodes and other soil organisms in ecosystems to global processes. Spanning more than 50 years, her research addressed questions about soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, soil carbon storage and climate change, global soil biodiversity and health, and sustainability. Her contributions to the understanding of soil biodiversity and ecology have been critical to understanding how ecosystems work at local to global scales, how they respond to global changes, and how they benefit people. Diana dedicated herself not only to science but to the goals of equity and diversity in science and public awareness of science. Moreover, she provided superb leadership and passion in several professional scientific organizations, and kindness and essential mentoring to many who knew and worked with her, including students and early career scientists.

Diana was born on 27 December 1943 in Durham, NC, and was raised in Lexington, KY. She earned a BA in biology in 1965, and a Ph.D. in plant pathology in 1971 from the University of Kentucky, Lexington, working with Professor R.A. Chapman to investigate nematodes that fed on the roots of red clover. With her nascent interest in nematodes, she took a postdoctoral position at the University of California Riverside, initially studying nematode communities in desert soils. In 1993, she moved to Fort Collins, CO, where she became associate dean for research and the director of the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) in the College of Natural Resources at Colorado State University (CSU). She was the founding director of CSU's School of Global Environmental Sustainability in 2008 and served in that position until her death. In this role Diana innovated and shared a vision of how universities could engage in sustainability, including through building collaborations and understanding across disciplines, encouraging transdisciplinary collaborations between scientists and decision makers, continuing commitment to excellence and rigor, strengthening communication and leadership training and capacities, and encouraging many ways of engaging the public. She especially loved one of her local outreach efforts; “Managing the Planet,” a monthly panel series at a pub near CSU that still brings community members together with faculty and students for talks about sustainability.

Diana's early research interests focused on mechanisms by which nematodes cope with extended dry and hot periods in soils, and later understanding their ecological dynamics, vulnerability to environmental changes, and roles in carbon cycling and other ecosystem processes. To address these questions, Diana and colleague Ross A. Virginia, now at Dartmouth University, looked for simple “model” ecosystems, which they found in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. In their first NSF-funded exploratory field trip in 1989, Diana and Ross found not the sterile soils that were assumed present on the coldest and driest continent, but instead an ideal simple soil food web consisting of yeast, bacteria, fungi, rotifers, and arthropods, with nematodes as top predators. In her more than 25 consecutive years going “to the ice,” she and her colleagues learned much more about soil organism structure and functioning, their response to environmental changes, and the key roles they play in soil carbon turnover and carbon cycling. According to Ross, “Diana's work demonstrated that we can't fully understand climate change if we don't understand what is going on in the soil beneath our feet.”

Beyond her work in Antarctica, Diana brought together scientists from around the world in research that evaluated and ultimately highlighted the importance of soil organisms and biodiversity at ecosystem and global scales. With her remarkable capacity to engage people to work together, she convened an international team of soil ecologists to build a global view of soil biodiversity, spanning topics from understanding the distributions of soil organisms across biomes to investigating and highlighting their importance in decomposition to reviewing and synthesizing the rapidly expanding body of knowledge on the biodiversity of soil organisms and their important roles in ecosystem services to humanity.

Dr. Wall's work in soil ecology was recognized over the years with some of the most significant awards in her field, including being named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014 and the Ecological Society of America in 2012, being awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2013, the Ulysses Medal of the University College Dublin in 2015, and ESA's Eminent Ecologist Award in 2017, election to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014 and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2018, and receiving the British Ecological Society's President's Medal in 2019. In 2004, her pioneering, long-term studies on the soils of Antarctica inspired the USGS and ICSU Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research to recognize her by naming a valley in Antarctica in her honor; the Wall Valley (Location: 77°29′ S, 160°51′ E).

Beyond her research, Diana gave her time, brainpower, and leadership skills to many scientific organizations. She served as president of the Ecological Society of America (1999–2000) and a member of its Governing Board (1998–2001), where she helped to raise the profile of the society as a leading environmental resource. She worked to increase collaborations among ecologists throughout the Americas, with other scientific societies, and with the ESA's international members and sister ecological societies. While President, Diana and the ESA prepared and delivered congressional briefings (with the Soil Science Society of America and the American Mathematical Society) on carbon sequestration and biocomplexity. Under her guidance, Diana increased ESA's representation of members from Canada, Mexico, Central, and South America, making ESA a true Ecological Society of the Americas. A memorable accomplishment was the establishment of a new award recognizing the role of ESA members in educating all students from any discipline about ecology. The award was named in honor of Eugene Odum (who donated the initial funds for the award). She also served as president of the Society of Nematologists, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, and chaired the Council of Scientific Society Presidents. Diana sat on dozens of national and international advisory boards and boards of directors, including the Polar Research Board of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and boards of the World Resources Institute, Island Press, and the U.S. National Committee for UNESCO's International Hydrological Program. She chaired the International Biodiversity Observation Year, an initiative of DIVERSITAS that began in 2001.

Based on her engagement in these and other programs, Diana saw a need to identify and recognize the international community of scientists working on soil ecology and biodiversity. In 2011, she was proud to co-found the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative and served as its inaugural science chair. The initiative, which engaged 150 scientists from 26 countries, produced the Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas in 2016, the first scientific assessment of life in soils, including biota, ecosystem processes, biogeochemistry, and ecological interactions (Photo 2).

Diana played a vital leadership role in diversifying the face of ecology and championing the importance of communicating environmental science and its relevance to the public. Beginning her career in the early 1970s, when few women held positions in the sciences, she experienced firsthand the challenges of breaking through the glass ceilings of promotion and tenure in academia. Leading by her actions and writing (e.g., articles from 1989 included Women and Minorities in Sciences, Council of Scientific Society Presidents News 4:5–6; and The Scientist Shortage and the Gender Gap, BioScience 39:523), Diana helped open doors for women in science. Elizabeth Holland, a Distinguished Research Fellow in the Institute of Strategy, Resilience and Security, University College London, recalls “I first met Diana… (when) I was an undergraduate, and she stood larger than life…. I had known of her even then as a leader and force of nature in the world of soil food webs. Diana would become a treasured friend and mentor. I truly benefitted from her leadership as a proud CSU and NREL alumnus and descendant of fellow Kentuckians…. Diana was a builder of roads, envisioning a way forward for the rest of us to follow.”

Diana was one of the first Leopold Leadership Program Fellows and an important advocate of the program for ecologists when she was president of the ESA, and beyond. Her colleague and Leopold Leadership Fellow, Lisa Graumlich, Dean Emerita in the College of the Environment at the University of Washington, recollects that “Diana was a shining example of how our community thrives when we share audacious visions with joy and compassion. As another of the 1st cohort (Leopold Fellow), Diana inspired me to always think bigger.” Diana encouraged many to take on leadership roles in their departments, within professional societies, and beyond academia. In all these ways and many more, Diana was a role model and mentor to two generations of ecologists and leaders in ecology.

Diana's many students especially appreciated her for being the biggest cheerleader for them and her staff. She had boundless enthusiasm for science and for young scientists. Former student Ashley Shaw Adams, now an assistant professor at Appalachian State University, remembers “…how excited Diana was about soil biodiversity; literally bouncing up and down as she talked about it; I had never met anyone with that kind of enthusiasm for science. I wanted to be a part of it, whatever it was. I had no idea how incredibly lucky I would be …. She would change the trajectory of my life and I had no idea” (Photo 3).

Diana Wall produced a truly outstanding body of ecological work and sustained ecological contributions of extraordinary merit over her long career. Moreover, she distinguished herself as a generous colleague and mentor, and champion of ecological and environmental sciences and their importance in our daily lives. With her warmth, energy, open mindset, soft southern accent, and great sense of humor, she engaged students and colleagues, as well as policy makers and citizens, and was loved and respected by so many. She was the foremost global ambassador for soil biodiversity and ecosystem health as well as a true global leader in climate change, global environmental change, and sustainability science efforts. We've lost the most wonderful, talented, generous, visionary, and fun friend, and so have all in ecology and the scientific world. We will miss her terribly.

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