Rod Schoonover is the CEO and Founder of the Ecological Futures Group. As a scholar, writer, and thought leader with extensive expertise in both the biophysical sciences and national security, he is an internationally recognized expert on global ecological disruption and climate change and their impacts on people, societies, and security.

Dr. Schoonover has spent a decade in senior roles in the US intelligence community, both at the National Intelligence Council and the State Department, where he helped establish ecological and environmental issues within the core national security framework of the U.S. government. He has provided numerous written and oral security analyses on climate change, ecological disruption, water security, food security, wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, illegal fishing, polar issues, and a number of related science and technology issues.

A gifted communicator, Dr. Schoonover speaks on ecological security and climate change issues to diverse audiences worldwide and on media outlets such as CBS, CNN, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and numerous podcasts and panels. His commitment to scientific integrity and evidence-driven, apolitical analysis compelled him to resign from the Trump administration in July 2019. His scientific training is rare for the security community and differentiates him from most other ecological security experts.

In addition to steering EFG, he is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, an Associate Senior Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and an Associate (Non-Resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In 2022, Dr. Schoonover was a Resident Fellow at the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center for a project examining the effects of the intersection of climate change, ecological disruption, and antimicrobial resistance.

In government, Dr. Schoonover was a four-time recipient of the State Department’s Superior Honor Award and received multiple awards for excellence in analysis from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In 2015, Dr. Schoonover was awarded the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research Analyst of the Year, its highest honor, for outstanding analysis of scientific and environmental issues with significant impact on U.S. national security and foreign policy.

Prior to civil service, Dr. Schoonover was a tenured Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He earned his PhD in complex systems physics from the University of Michigan. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and daughter, loves noise pop and country-punk music, plays acoustic guitar about as well as he plays electric, motorcycles when he can, and reads scientific journals both professionally and for pleasure.