Background/Question/Methods For over two decades, members and leaders of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) have pursued a vision of an ecological community that reflects the full diversity of our nation, one that addresses the full sweep of concerns and needs of our society. Several hypotheses, often only implicit and without strong empirical support, have guided efforts to achieve this vision: 1) Early exposure to “natural” environments and to ecological science practices, by family, friends or inspirational teachers, can engage youngsters in the field and encourage them to join the ecological community. 2) Diversifying the intellectual scope of the field to include topics of concern and relevance to diverse peoples attracts and retains people from groups not formerly engaged in the field. 3) Diversifying the community of ecologists by actively recruiting diverse peoples will help diversify the intellectual scope of the field. 4) Creating new kinds of ecological communities through innovative programs (e.g., SEEDS), broadly available ecological data (e.g., NEON) and methods (e.g., Citizen Science programs like Project BudBurst), and dynamic communication technologies engage, nurture and support diverse people in the pursuit and application of ecological knowledge.  After presenting these hypotheses and associated rationales for them, we will review and draw lessons from efforts to diversify the ESA and the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES).
Results/Conclusions There are several ways of measuring the diversity of ESA. The racial, ethnic and gender diversity of the Society has increased in the past two decades. Likewise, the diversity of topics included in our journals, and in ESA meetings has increased notably. There now are ESA sections in urban ecology, agroecology, traditional ecological knowledge, human ecology and environmental justice. Indeed, the first ESA Millennium Conference included environmental justice as a focus. The ways that our community functions have expanded, too, with groups of students and scientists from multiple institutions forming vibrant, evolving and productive “virtual villages” that nurture individual growth and support collective action. Sometimes less obvious in these successes are key actors, in the case of ESA, “interface” programs like SEEDS that connect communities not traditionally connected with each other. Similar actors have played pivotal roles in the successes of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study – interface organizations such as the Parks and People Foundation – to help create a diverse “village” of citizens, scientists, managers and educators where ecology is grown and used to help make healthier and more verdant places for people to live.