Pat Fall is a Professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA. As a paleoecologist, her landscape studies investigate local and regional shifts in vegetation and land use triggered by climate change and human impacts. She conducts research in Polynesia and the Caribbean, as well as the Mediterranean and Middle East. Pat has authored nearly 100 publications, including articles in the Proceedings of the United States Academy of Sciences and in Nature Ecology and Evolution.