Janice Ser Huay LEE
Janice Lee is a Principal Investigator at the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) and an Assistant Professor at the Asian School of the Environment (ASE) in Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
Prior to joining NTU in 2016, Janice was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy Program in Princeton University and the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich after obtaining her PhD in 2013. She completed both her BSc in Life Sciences and MSc in Ecology at the National University of Singapore.
Janice has published 26 research papers, 10 of which she is the first author. She is co-author of seven book chapters and reports including the IUCN Oil Palm Task Force Situation Analysis on Oil Palm and Biodiversity. Currently, Janice is on the editorial board of Biological Conservation and most recently guest-edited Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Special Issue on Improving Environmental Sustainability in Oil Palm: Linking Science, Policy, & Practice across the Tropics. She has also reviewed manuscripts for journals with high impact factors, such as Nature Climate Change, PNAS, and Biological Conservation.
In her role at EOS and ASE, Janice is supervising or has supervised two Postdoctoral researchers, five research associates, four PhD students, and nine undergraduate students.
Janice leads the Coupled Human and Natural Systems Lab at EOS and ASE. Her primary research interest is in socio-ecological systems. She focuses on issues pertinent to rural land use and land cover change and the impacts of these changes on biodiversity conservation and human livelihoods. Her research also concerns issues related to the oil palm industry, food security, and peatland restoration and management in Southeast Asia
- 2006: BS, Life Sciences, National University of Singapore
- 2009: MS, Ecology, National University of Singapore
- 2013: PhD, Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich
- 2016 — present: Principal Investigator, Earth Observatory of Singapore and Assistant Professor, Asian School of the Environment
- 2014 — 2016: Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy Program, Princeton University, USA
- 2013 — 2014: Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
- 2013: Consultant with the Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia
Guest Editor
- 2018 — 2019: Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Special Issue on Improving Environmental Sustainability in Oil Palm: Linking Science, Policy, & Practice across the Tropics
Editorial Board
- 2019 — present: Biological Conservation
Reviewer
- Nature Climate Change
- PNAS
- Biological Conservation
- Conservation Letters
- Land Use Policy
- Biotropica
- Environment, Development and Sustainability
- Remote Sensing
- International Journal of Applied Earth Observation
- Applied Geography
- Ambio
- Agricultural Systems
- Ecology and Society
- Global Environmental Change
- Restoration Ecology
- PLOSOne
International Reviews
- September 2017: Participated in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Oil Palm Task Force report which is a comprehensive review of the threats of oil palm to biodiversity
- Contributed to the IUCN Oil Palm Task Force Situation Analysis on Oil Palm and Biodiversity
- August 2019 — present: NTU Scholarship Interview Exercise
- August 2019 — present: TF LEaRN Scholars mentor
- August 2018 — present: Qualifying Exam Panel at the Asian School of the Environment
- May 2018: Invited speaker at the inaugural College of Science, Women in Science Symposium
Publications:
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The value of China's ban on wildlife trade and consumption. Nature Sustainability. 4(1), 2-4. (2021).
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Estimating global mean sea-level rise and its uncertainties by 2100 and 2300 from an expert survey. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. 3(1), (2020).
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Economic and social constraints on reforestation for climate mitigation in Southeast Asia. Nature Climate Change. (2020).
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Combining Radar and Optical Imagery to Map Oil Palm Plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia, Using the Google Earth Engine. Remote Sensing. 12(7), (2020).
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Does the oil palm certification create trade-offs between environment and development in Indonesia?. Environmental Research Letters. (2020).
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Strategic advertising of online news articles as an intervention to influence wildlife product consumers. Conservation Science and Practice. (2020).
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The environmental impacts of palm oil in context. Nature Plants. 6, 1418–1426. (2020).
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Evaluating the Social and Environmental Factors behind the 2015 Extreme Fire Event in Sumatra, Indonesia. Environmental Research Letters. 14(1), (2019).
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Regulating Trans-boundary Haze in Southeast Asia. (Hsu, S., Ed.).Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Development in Asia. (2018).
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Understanding consumer preferences and demography in order to reduce the domestic trade in wild-caught birds.. Biological Conservation. 209, 423-431. (2017).
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Junking Tropical Forest for Junk Foods?. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 17(7), 355-356. (2016).
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Towards Clearer Skies: Challenges in Regulating Transboundary Haze in Southeast Asia.. Environmental Science and Policy. 5(1), 87-95. (2016).
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Detecting industrial oil palm plantations on Landsat images with Google Earth Engine.. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment. 4, 219-224. (2016).
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A Review on the Environmental Impacts of Oil Palm Expansion in the Developing Tropics. Monoculture Farming: Global Practices, Ecological Impact and Benefits/Drawbacks. (2016).
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Closing oil palm yield gaps among Indonesian smallholders through industry schemes, pruning, weeding and improved seeds.. Royal Society Open Science. (2016).
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Analysis of deforestation and protected area effectiveness in Indonesia: a comparison of Bayesian spatial models.. Global Environmental Change. 31, 285-295. (2015).
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Will Oil Palm’s Homecoming Spell Doom for Africa’s Great Apes?. Current Biology. 24(14), 1659-1663. (2014).
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Modelling environmental and socioeconomic trade-offs associated with land-sparing and land-sharing approaches to oil palm expansion.. Journal of Applied Ecology. 51(5), 1366-1377. (2014).
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Relative contributions of the logging, fiber, oil palm and mining industries to forest loss in Indonesia.. Conservation Letters. 8(1), 58-67. (2014).
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Oil palm smallholder yields and incomes constrained by harvesting practices and type of smallholder management in Indonesia.. Agronomy for Sustainable Development. 34(2), 501-513. (2014).
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Environmental impacts of large-scale oil palm enterprises exceed that of smallholdings in Indonesia.. Conservation Letters. 7(1), 25-33. (2013).
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Land use changes imperil South-East Asian biodiversity. Land Use Intensification. Effects on Agriculture, Biodiversity and Ecological Processes. (2012).
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Linking biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of dung beetles in South and Southeast Asian tropical rainforests.. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 25, 141-156. (2012).
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Biofuel expansion in Southeast Asia: Biodiversity impacts and policy guidelines. Socioeconomic and Environmental Impacts of Biofuels. 231-254. (2012).
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Impacts of biofuel expansion in biodiversity hotspots. Biodiversity Hotspots: Distribution and Protection of Conservation Priority Areas. 277-293. (2011).
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No farmer left behind in sustainable biofuel production.. Biological Conservation. 144, 2512-2516. (2011).
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Impacts of Liquid Biofuels on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity. Impacts of Liquid Biofuels on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity. (2010).
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Predation on Onthophagus rutilans Sharp (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) by Dindymus albicornis (Fabricius) (Hemiptera: Pyrrhocoridae).. Boletin de la Sociedad Entomologica Aragonesa. 46, 609-610. (2010).
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Biofuels: Social Benefits. 326, 1344. (2009).
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Changes in dung beetle communities along a gradient of tropical forest disturbance in South-East Asia.. Journal of Tropical Ecology. 25(6), 677-680. (2009).
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Possible extinctions of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Singapore.. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 57(2), 537-542. (2009).