Dr. Paul Bunje
Co-Founder & COO/CSO Conservation X Labs
Dr. Paul Bunje is the co-founder and COO/CSO of Conservation X Labs, an organization that brings innovation to global conservation threats. Conservation X Labs brings technology and entrepreneurship to conservation using a mix of crowdsourcing, open innovation, directed research, and acceleration. Conservation X Labs focuses on bringing new technologies that can scale up to the global application to end human-caused extinction and preserve our planet’s biodiversity.
Dr. Bunje is the former Chief Scientist at the XPRIZE Foundation, where he led the impact strategy across grand challenge domains, spanning civil society, environment, energy, health, and exploration. While at XPRIZE, he led multiple global competitions worth more than $30 million in prizes.
Dr. Bunje was formerly the founding Executive Director of the UCLA Center for Climate Change Solutions, the Managing Director of the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability, and served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Oceans. He has served on the boards of several companies and organizations that focus on transforming our planet for the better, including Volans Ventures, the City of Los Angeles’ Green Retrofit Advisory Council, the UCLA Center for Tropical Research, Clean Tech LA, Climate Resolve, the Los Angeles Sustainability Collaborative, and the AGU Centennial Committee. In 2013, the American Association for the Advancement of Science honored Dr. Bunje as one of 40 individuals who exemplify the thousands of AAAS Science, and Technology Policy Fellows dedicated to applying science to serve society. He is trained in biology, with a B.S. from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.