Photo of Millie Chapman

Millie Chapman

assistant professor @ ETH Zürich

My research is at the intersection of decision theory, ecology, and data justice, critically exploring how computational tools can help us develop effective and equitable strategies to meet global biodiversity targets.

CV

About

I’m a tenure track assistant professor at ETH Zürich in the Department of Environmental Systems Science, where I lead the Environmental Policy Lab. I’m also a faculty member of the Einstein School of Public Policy (where I co-lead the cluster on "Environmental, Energy, and Food Systems"), the ETH AI Center, the Center for Comparative and International Studies, and the Zurich-Basel Plant Sciences Center. Beyond academia, I’m an expert for the IPBES Spatial Planning and Connectivity Assessment, a lead author on the North America Biodiversity and Climate Change Assessment, and on the scientific advisory board for Source Cooperative.

Prior to joining ETH, I was a visiting faculty researcher at Google Research, a research fellow and postdoc at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), and a core team member at Climate Change AI (CCAI). I received my PhD from the University of California Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM).

In my free time, you’ll find me in the mountains or the ocean, savoring time with nature, family, and friends.

Publications

Please visit my Google Scholar for the most up-to-date list of publications.

  1. Neubert et al. [incl Chapman] (2026) Advancing multi-objective optimization in spatial planning. [In press] Journal of Applied Ecology.
  2. Hulkunda, Swanson, Dehmler-Buckley, Burkart, Chapman, & Beery. (2026) Models and metrics aren’t enough: How data marketplaces can help close the biodiversity information gap. [In press] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  3. Ellis-Soto & Chapman. (2026) Historic residential segregation impacts biodiversity data availability disparately across the tree of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
    PDF
  4. Perry, Schweier, Bont, Kushwaha, Peltola, Eyvindson, Astrup, Chapman, Blattert. (2026)Towards precision forestry: A systematic review of optimisation methods for individual-tree decisions in forest management. Trees, Forests, and People.
    PDF
  5. Scoville, Amironesei, Xu, Chapman, Record, Boettiger. (2025) From maps to models: Participation and contestability in the dynamic management of natural resources. Geography and Environment.
    PDF
  6. Oestreich, Czapanskiy, Katija, Record, Chapman, Chapman, (2025) Collective science to inform global ocean protections. Ecology Letters
    PDF
  7. Johnson, Chaplin-Kramer, Chapman, Polasky, Williams. (2025) Earth-Economy Modeling: Advances in Linking Economic and Ecosystem Models. Annual Review of Resource Economics
    PDF
  8. Faxon & Chapman. (2025) Beyond spatial bias: Understanding the colonial legacies and contemporary social forces shaping biodiversity data. Environmental Research Letters
    PDF | code
  9. Chapman & Visconti. (2025) Balancing restoration targets and production demands in the EU. Nature Ecology and Evolution
    PDF
  10. Chapman, Jung, Boettiger, Leclère, Gusti, Augustynczik, Ringwald, Visconti. (2025) Meeting European conservation and restoration targets under future land-use demands. Nature Ecology and Evolution
    PDF | code
  11. Harrell, Kaeser-Chen, Ayan, Anderson, Conserva, Kleeman, Neumann, Overlan, Chapman, & Purves. (2025). Heterogenous graph neural networks for species distribution modeling. International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR).
    PDF
  12. Chapman, Goldstein, Schell, Brashares, Carter, Ellis-Soto, Faxon, Goldstein, Halpern, Longdon, Norman, O'Rourke, Scoville, Xu, Boettiger. Biodiversity monitoring for a just planetary future. (2024). Science.
    PDF
  13. Oliver, Chapman, Ellis-Soto, Brum-Bastos, Cagnacci, Long, Loretto, Patchett, & Rutz. (2024). Access to human mobility data is essential for building a sustainable future. Cell Reports Sustainability.
    PDF
  14. Ellis-Soto, Chapman, Koltz.(2024) Addressing data disparities is critical for biodiversity assessments. Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
    PDF
  15. Oestreich, Oliver, Chapman, Go, Mckenna. (2024) Listening to animal behavior to understand changing ecosystems. Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
    PDF
  16. Sprenkle-Hyppolite, Griffey, Munshi, Chapman, & Griscom. (2024) Expert-Informed Leakage-Free Global Carbon Dioxide Removal Potential of Trees in Agriculture. Carbon Balance and Management.
    PDF
  17. Jung, Alagador, Chapman, Hermoso, Kujala, O'Connor, Schinegger, Verburg, Visconti. (2024) An assessment of the state of conservation planning in Europe. Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
    PDF
  18. Oliver, Chapman, Emery, Gillespie, Gownaris, Leike, ... Zimmerman. Opening a conversation on responsible environmental data science in the age of generative AI.(2024). Environmental Data Science.
    PDF
  19. Hasting^, Ocloo^, Chapman^, Hunt^, Stenger. Trends in agroforestry research over 4 decades. (2023). Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene .
    PDF ^equal contributions
  20. Ellis-Soto, Chapman, Locke. Uneven biodiversity sampling across redlined urban areas in the United States. (2023). Nature Human Behavior.
    PDF
  21. Montealegre-Mora, Laperolerie, Chapman, Boettiger. (2023). Pretty darn good control: When are approximate solutions better than approximate models? Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
    PDF
  22. Scoville, Faxon, Chapman, & et al. (2023). Environment, society and machine learning. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Machine Learning. PDF
  23. Chapman, Xu, Lapeyrolerie, Boettiger. (2023). Bridging adaptive management and reinforcement learning for more robust decisions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
    PDF
  24. Chapman, Boettiger, Brashares. (2023) Leveraging private lands to meet 2030 biodiversity targets in the United States. Conservation Science and Practice.
    code | PDF
  25. Kurz, Middleton, Chapman,Van Houtan, Wilkinson, Withey, and Brashares. (2023). Including rural america in academic conservation science. Frontiers in Conservation Science.
    PDF
  26. Moravek et al., [including Chapman]. (2023) Centering 30x30 conservation initiatives on freshwater ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
    PDF
  27. Estein, Chapman, Schell, Lowy, Gerson. (2022). Demystifying the graduate school application process. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America.
    PDF
  28. Lapeyrolerie, Chapman, Norman, Boettiger. Deep Reinforcement Learning for Conservation Decisions. (2022). Methods in Ecology and Evolution
    code | PDF
  29. Chapman, Wiltshire, Baur, Bowles, Carlisle, Castillo, Esquivel, Gennet, Iles, Karp, Kremen, Liebert, Olimpi, Ory, Ryan, Sciligo, Thompson, Waterhouse, Boettiger. (2022). Social-ecological feedbacks drive tipping points in farming system diversification. One Earth.
    code | PDF
  30. Dowd, Chapman, Koehn, Hoagland. (2022) The economic tradeoffs and ecological impacts associated with a potential mesopelagic fishery in the California Current. Ecological Applications.
    code | PDF
    ^undergraduate thesis mentee
  31. Chapman, Scoville, Lapeyrolerie, Boettiger. (2021). Power and Accountability in Reinforcement Learning Applications to Environmental Policy. 35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2021).
    PDF
  32. Roe, et al. [including Chapman].(2021). Land-based measures to mitigate climate change: potential and feasibility by country. Global Change Biology.
    PDF
  33. Nagy, et al. [including Chapman]. (2021). Harnessing the NEON Data Revolution to Advance Open Environmental Science with a Diverse and Data-Capable Community. Ecosphere.
    PDF
  34. Kitzes, et al.[including Chapman]. (2021). Expanding the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) biodiversity surveys with new instrumentation and machine learning models. Ecosphere.
    PDF
  35. Calhoun, Chapman, Tubbesing, McInturff, Gaynor, Van Scoyoc, Wilkinson, Parker‐Shames, Kurz, Brashares (2021). Spatial overlap of wildfires and biodiversity in California highlights gap in non-conifer fire research and management. Diversity and Distributions.
    PDF
  36. Chapman^, Oestreich^, Frawley, Boettiger, Sibyl Diver, Santos, Scoville, Armstrong, Blondin, Chand, Haulsee, Knight, Crowder (2021) Promoting equity in the use of algorithms for high seas conservation. One Earth.
    code | PDF
    ^ equal contributions
  37. Ordway, et al., [including Chapman]. (2021) Leveraging the NEON Airborne Observation Platform for socio-environmental systems research. Ecosphere.
    PDF
  38. Scoville, Chapman, Amironesei, Boettiger. (2021). Algorithmic Conservation Governance in a Changing Climate. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.
    PDF
  39. Chapman, et al. (2020). Large climate mitigation potential from adding trees to agricultural lands. Global Change Biology.
    code | PDF
  40. Oestreich, Chapman ,and Crowder. (2020). A comparative analysis of dynamic management in marine and terrestrial systems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
    code | PDF
  41. Griscom, et al. [including Chapman]. (2020). National mitigation potential from natural climate solutions in the tropics. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
    PDF
  42. Samndong, Bush, Vatn, and Chapman. (2018). Institutional analysis of causes of deforestation in REDD+ pilot sites in the Equateur province: Implication for REDD+ in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Land use policy.
    PDF
  43. Galvin, Li, Villemaine, Poole, Chapman, Pollastri, Wyatt, Carlow. (2014). A Target Repurposing Approach Identifies N-myristoyltransferase as a New Candidate Drug Target in Filarial Nematodes. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
    PDF (from undergraduate research, take 1: when I wanted to be a biochemist :)
  44. Cunningham, et al. [including Chapman] (2014). Impaired consciousness in partial seizures is bimodally distributed. Neurology.
    PDF (from undergraduate research, take 2: when I wanted to be a neuroscientist :)

What I'm up to

  • 24 Feb 2027: Invited keynote at Tage der Biodiversität 2027, University of Innsbruck, Austria
  • 15 Dec 2026: Invited seminar at Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)
  • 3 Dec 2026: Invited talk at the PSC Symposium 2026 in the session “Moving Forward: Policy Pathways to Foster Biodiversity in the Face of Change”
  • 26 Nov 2026: Invited seminar, “The Challenges of Measuring Collective Progress towards Global Biodiversity Targets,” at the Einstein School of Public Policy Colloquium
  • 17-18 Nov 2026: Workshop on "Combinatorial optimization for spatial planning" @ Monash University Environmental Informatics Hub
  • 22 Oct - 28 Oct 2026: Attending CBD COP 17 in Yerevan, Armenia! Reach out if you'll be there and would like to meet!
  • 6 Oct - 8 Oct 2026: Kick-off meeting for BEAGLE (Biodiversity methods for advanced monitoring at large scales), a recently funded EU Horizon project, at Aarhus University. I'm leading a work package on policy-informed biodiversity monitoring
  • 17 Sep 2026: First day of the new MSc class I've launched @ ETH Zurich: Data Science for Environmental Policy! Strange times to teach data science, but so excited for grappling with the challenges and reimagining what data science education looks like alongside some incredible students!
  • 4 Sep - 5 Sep 2026: ETH AI Center Faculty Retreat!
  • 24 Aug - 28 Aug 2026: IPBES Spatial Planning and Connectivity Assessment Second Author meeting in Costa Rica (friends/collegues in San Jose - reach out!)
  • 24 Aug - 28 Aug 2026: Summer School on hosted by our group! I'll be giving a lecture (remotely): "On problem-driven research for crises :translating data to decisions"
  • 25 July - 1 Aug 2026: CBD SBSTTA/SBI meeting Nairobi!
  • 22 July 2026: I'm co-organizing a working group on "Decision Sovereignty for Nature, Governing and Funding the Commons in an AI Era" at the ETH AI Center in Zurich
  • 30 June - 2 July 2026: POLLEN conference in Barcelona! Organized a session on "The political ecology of emergent technologies in conservation and environmental governance"
  • 19 June 2026: Women in Data Science (WiDS) Conference in Zurich! I'll be giving an invited talk on "Data science for a more just planetary future"
  • 18-19 June 2026: Workshop on "Exploring complementarities between sustainability economics and sustainable finance at the climate–biodiversity nexus" in Zurich!
  • 15-17 June 2026: World Biodiversity Forum in Davos, Switzerland! (Reach out if you're there and want to grab a coffee or go for a walk and jam on ideas!)
  • 8-11 June 2026: Nordic Environmental Social Science Conference in Upsalla! I'll be presenting a working paper on tech refusal as part of a workshop on "The environment in times of AI hype: Interrogating digitisation in and for environmental governance, policy, and its constitutive processes"
  • 4-5 June 2026: Lab retreat!
  • 1-3 June 2026: Department retreat in Davos! I'll be giving a keynote on AI/Digital tech refusal in environmental science, policy, and practice
  • 4 May 2026: ETH Global Lecture Series: Taking the Pulse of the Planet. More info & registration here.
  • 29 Apr 2026: ETH Inaugural Lecture! More info here.
  • 27-29 Apr 2026: Keynote talk at Climate Informatics 2026, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 1 Apr 2026: Seminar at the Environmental Informatics Hub, Monash University
  • 11-12 Mar 2026: Lab group workshop, featuring incoming PhD students Eduoardo Gaggi and Jory Griffith! So inspired by the curiousity and creativity in our growing Environmental Policy Lab!
  • 25–26 Feb 2026: Review Panel for MISTRA BIOPATH funding, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 14–16 Jan 2026: Keynote lecture at CMCC (Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change) Annual Meeting
  • 2 Dec 2025: Environmental Policy Lab mini-retreat — lots of fun conversations on community, science, and future directions
  • 21–24 Oct 2025: Living Data Conference, Bogotá, Colombia - presented work on colonial legacies and contemporary social forces that shape biodiversity data
  • 16–18 Oct 2025: Urban Biosphere Futures Workshop, Chicago, USA - presented work on
  • 1 Oct 2025: Keynote Panelist Ai x Environnement Event, Zürich, Switzerland
  • 22–26 Sept 2025: First IPBES Spatial Planning & Connectivity Assessment Expert Meeting, Vienna, Austria
  • 19–21 Sept 2025: Pandemic Risk Workshop (Panelist), New Haven, USA
  • 11–12 Sept 2025: OSCE Climate Risk & Security Panel, Prague, Czech Republic
  • 2–6 Sept 2025: Meeting on the political feasibility of 30×30 conservation targets, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 4–10 Aug 2025: Research retreat on public goods mechanism design, Reykjavík, Iceland
  • 30 Jul–2 Aug 2025: Workshop on Climate Change & AI, Como, Italy
  • 1 Jul 2025: Started at ETH Zürich as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Environmental Policy! So stoked!
  • 24 June 2025: Panel at the London School of Economics (LSE)
  • 16–17 June 2025: Keynote lecture at CHIA (Cambridge Center for Human Inspired AI)
  • 4–6 June 2025: Working group on AI for collective climate action, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 1 June 2025: Moved to Zürich, Switzerland :)

Reach out

Always happy to jam on ideas! Feel free to email me at mchapma at ethz dot ch.

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