Prof. Dr. Mark Lawrence is scientific director at RIFS, the Research Institute for Sustainability at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences (formerly IASS). He addresses the Anthropocene in an integrative manner, bringing together a wide range of academic expertise in his team and involving societal actors in a transdisciplinary research approach.

His main transformative research topics include air pollution, climate change, climate geoengineering, environment-related governance of vulnerable regions like the Himalayas, the Arctic and the ocean, and the sustainability-oriented interfaces between the sciences and other key knowledge-holder communities such as the arts, religions and indigenous peoples. 

He also actively supports whole person development as a component of sustainability, including exploring the common ground between personal transformations and systemic transformations, as well as the mindsets needed to bring these into harmony.