William ("Will") Lee Steffen, influential Earth system scientist who quantified human impacts on the global environment and shaped public understanding of the planetary crisis, died on 29 January. He was 75. Will's critical insights contributed to our current understanding of Earth as a complex adaptive system characterized by interactions among a range of biogeochemi-cal and physical components, and he warned that modern society risks exceeding the limits of planetary stability. At numerous organizations focusing on global change research, he spearheaded interdisciplinary worldwide sustainability initiatives, established bridges between climate science and policy, and communicated results with the public. Born on 25 June 1947 in the tiny town of Clearwater, Nebraska, and raised in Spencer, Iowa, Will completed his bachelor's in chemical engineering at the University of Missouri in 1970 (supported by an oil company scholarship, a fact he later found ironic given his focus on anthropogenic climate change). He then moved to the University of Florida, where he received a master's degree in education in 1972; met and married his wife, Carrie; and-after a US Peace Corps tour to the Fiji Islands-earned his PhD in chemistry in 1975. Will did a postdoc at Cornell University and then accepted a research fellowship in chemistry in 1977 at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
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