When famed herpetologist and curator at the Bronx Zoo, Raymond Ditmars, entertained with stories of komodo dragons and their far-flung habitats, a seven-year-old Bruce Jones was hooked. “My life-long fascination with biology and biogeography began then,” he says. (See CV)

Snakes, however, charmed him into federal government. After getting his MSc in biology at New Mexico State University, Jones took a break from school to conduct habitat surveys of reptiles and amphibians for the Bureau of Land Management. From there, he listed endangered species for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

He then moved to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to head an ecosystem-monitoring initiative called the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program. Eager to protect ecological systems as opposed to individual species, the project's success allowed him to establish a landscape-monitoring programme.

His pursuit of a PhD in environmental biology proved a turning point. “I got the brain boost that comes from debating theories without the repercussions of a federal title,” he says. His biggest challenge remains working within the constraints of government science, whose policy focus sometimes falls short of academic-quality research.

Jones's work has helped change the EPA's focus from simply enforcing regulation on single eco-stressors to an integrated approach to environmental and human health. Using satellite imagery and geographic information science, his group published a landmark report on the ecological condition of the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

One of his great successes involved a land-use change assessment — Jones's research showed that spending $500 million to protect an upstate watershed, and therefore water quality, would save New York City the $7 billion to build a filtration system. The oft-cited work is one of the first instances of placing economic value on services freely provided by ecosystems, such as water purification. He has since been involved in a NATO project with Europe and Australia to assess watershed conditions across the continents. “It's been a remarkable ride,” he says.

Most recently, Jones left the EPA to become chief scientist for the US Geological Survey. He hopes to move the organization past mapping and into the science of spatial analysis and ecosystem vulnerability assessments. Jones says his first priority is to build a strong network of colleagues, his most important natural resource.