Jameel Index Advisory Committee

Joel K. Bourne

• Author and journalist

• National Geographic

Joel K. Bourne Jr. is an award-winning author and journalist who has spent his career traveling the globe to report on the volatile, co-dependent relationship between humans and the natural world. As a frequent contributor and former Senior Editor for the Environment for National Geographic, he's covered many of the major environmental issues of our time, including the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, the global rush to biofuels, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; and California's recurrent droughts. Combining an undergraduate degree in agronomy from N.C. State University with a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, Bourne frequently reports on the global food system, most recently covering the impact of the war in Ukraine on the grain and fertilizer trade. He contributed two articles to National Geographic's eight-part series, "The Future of Food," which won the prestigious A.H. Boerma Award from the FAO, reporting on the agricultural land rush in Africa, as well as new sustainable methods of aquaculture. His book, The End of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World (W.W. Norton n, 2015 ), explores the looming food crisis and ways to feed the planet without destroying it. It was a finalist for the 2016 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and was a selection for the book s - of - the - year list by the Financial Times of London.

Bourne has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and as a speaker and moderator at the Aspen Environmental Forum, the National Press Club, the Royal Society, Google X, and many other conferences around the world. He lives with his wife and three children in Wilmington, North Carolina.