Will Steffen is Executive Director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, and is also Science Adviser, Department of Climate Change, Australian Government. From 1998 to mid 2004, he served as Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, based in Stockholm, Sweden. His research interests span a broad range within the fields of climate change and Earth System science, with an emphasis on incorporation of human processes in Earth System modelling and analysis; and on sustainability, climate change and the Earth System.