Dr. Todd is one of the pioneers in the emerging field of ecological design and engineering. He has degrees in agriculture (McGill University), parasitology & tropical medicine (McGill University) and a doctorate in fisheries and ethology from the University of Michigan. He has received two honorary doctorates in science and engineering respectively.
Dr. Todd is a Research Professor in the School of Natural Resources and a Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Vermont. Also, he is a Fellow of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at UVM.
He is the Founder and President of Ocean Arks International, a non- profit research and education organization established in 1981, and the Founder and a Principal in
Todd Ecological Design, an international ecological design and engineering firm based in Woods Hole on Cape Cod.
John Todd teaches ecological design and oversees an ecological design studio at UVM. The ecological design course is taught in the fall and the ecological design studio during the spring semester. The course, as well as the design studio, explores the theory and practice of employing ecological knowledge to address urgent human and environmental problems.
Dr. Todd is the author of over two hundred scientific, technical and popular articles. He is the author of seven books, the latest with his wife Nancy Jack Todd, entitled “From Eco-cities to Living Machines: Ecology as the Basis for Design. He is the inventor of Eco-Machines for the treatment of wastes, production of foods, generation of fuels and the restoration of damaged aquatic environments. He holds four patents, and was named one of the 20th Century’s top thirty-five inventors by the Lemelson-MIT Program for Invention and Innovation, in their 2002 book entitled “Inventing Modern America: from the Microwave to the Mouse”(MIT Press). He is also featured in the recent (December, 2004), “The Genius Issue” of Esquire Magazine. In 2007 he, along with his wife Nancy Jack Todd, was named visionaries of the 20th Century in a book entitled “Visionaries of the 20th Century” by the UK based Resurgence Group. The list includes Gandhi, Rachel Carson, the Dali Lama, Aldo Leopold, Jane Goodall, Martin Luther King, Bob Dylan, Frank Lloyd Write and Carl Gustav Jung.
John Todd’s many awards include the first Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award (2008) Global Visionary Award from the City of Chicago (2006) Bioneers Lifetime Achievement Award (1998) the Charles and Ann Morrow Lindbergh Award for technological innovation on behalf of the environment (1998), Environmental Merit Award from the US EPA (1996), Daimler/Chrysler award for design (1994), the Discovery Award for technological innovation (1991), The Teddy Roosevelt Award for Conservation (1990), the United Nations (FUNEP) Award for contributions to the global environment (1990). The U.S. EPA Chico Mendes Memorial Award for Environmental Restoration (1989), and the Swiss Threshold Award for his Contributions to Human Knowledge (1980). He was named a “Hero of the Earth” by Time magazine in 1999.
He has just completed a book of short stories entitled “Man Overboard: Natural and Unnatural Histories from the Edge of the Sea.” In the fall of 2003 he published “Ecological Design Applied” a technical paper in Ecological Engineering 20: 421-440. He has a recent book chapter entitled “Living Technologies: Wedding Human Ingenuity to the Wisdom of the Wild” in a book entitled “Nature’s Operating Instructions: The True Biotechnologies” edited by Kenny Ausubel (Sierra Club Books), 2005. Recently he completed “Living Technologies in an Age of Limits: The Promise of Ecological Design”, due out in 2008 as a chapter in a book edited by David Orr. In the fall of 2007 he wrote a white paper for the Lewis Foundation entitled “A New Shared Economy for Appalachia: An Economy Built upon Environmental Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, Renewable Energy and Ecological Design”.
Dr. Todd interests include his students, graduate students and associates, ecological designing in all its forms, sailing, tinkering in greenhouses, reforestation in Costa Rica, raising tropical marine shrimp in New England, fine wine, decoding information from natural systems and writing.
Magazine Articles highlighting his accomplishments include:
In 2000, Dr. Todd was named a "Heroes for the Planet" by Time Magazine.
Dr. Todd was profiled in the "Genius" issue of Esquire Magazine (December 2004)