Georgia Institute of TechnologyIvan Allen CollegeSchool of Public Policy






Bryan Norton
Distinguished Professor
Office: DM Smith 300
Email:  click to email
Phone: (404) 894-6511
Fax:  (404) 385-0504

Ph.D., University of Michigan, Philosophy

ryan Norton: Professor of Philosophy. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1970, specializing in the philosophy of science and conceptual change in, and across, scientific disciplines.

He writes on inter-generational equity, sustainability theory, bio-diversity policy and on valuation methods. His specialty is the integration of spatio-temporal scaling considerations into sustainability criteria.

Recent research includes work on inter-generational impacts of policy choices (sponsored by US EPA), on endangered species policy, on sustainability theory, and on cultural aspects of environmental protection (sponsored by the Army Environmental Policy Institute). He has also done research on the socio-economic impacts of global climate change for the United States Forest Service Global Change Program, and several projects on bio-diversity policy sponsored by the National Science Foundation. He has recently completed work on an NSF project to examine how individuals and groups place boundaries around systems they believe to be threatened. Currently, he is working on, and is an Advisor to the MacArthur Foundation project, Advancing Conservation in a Social Context. This project examines how to make better decisions about how to decide trade-offs between conservation goals and economic development needs.

Dr. Norton is author of Linguistic Frameworks and Ontology (Mouton Publishers, 1977); Why Preserve Natural Variety? (Princeton University Press, 1987); Toward Unity Among Environmentalists (Oxford University Press, 1991). He is editor of The Preservation of Species (Princeton University Press) and co-editor of Ecosystem Health: New Goals for Environmental Management (Island Press, 1992); Ethics on the Ark (Smithsonian Press 1995) and Searching for Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Essays in the Philosophy of Conservation Biology (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He has contributed to journals in several fields, including philosophy, biology, ecology, economics, ecological economics, and environmental management. He has been a member of the editorial boards of Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values, Ethics and the Environment, Ecosystem Health, Ecological Economics, the Gale Publishers GreenR project and a former section editor for Conservation Biology.

Dr. Norton has served on numerous panels, including the Ecosystem Valuation Forum (US EPA), and The Risk Assessment Forum (US EPA), for whom he co-authored the scientific background papers for the first-ever protocols for Ecological Risk Assessment. He has completed a term as a charter member of the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee of the EPA Science Advisory Board. Dr. Norton was a Research Associate at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland (1981-83) and was Gilbert White Fellow at Resources for the Future (1985-86) and has recently served as a member of the Board of Directors of Defenders of Wildlife, a member of the Governing Board of the Society for Conservation Biology, and a Fellow of the Hastings Institute.

See Dr. Norton's complete list of publications.