Brenda Shears retired from the Global Institute of Sustainability in 2011 and retains an affiliation with the Institute as Operations Diretor Emerita and as a faculty affiliate of the School of Human Evolution & Social Change (SHESC). At GIOS, she served as Director of Operations and Outreach, which included commununity engagement, special events, K-12 education, Sustainable Cities Network, and office and building management. She actively managed the proposal support team as part of the GIOS research development program. She has served as co-principal investigator and senior personnel on several multi-year research awards from the National Science Foundation and is actively engaged in current international research activities. She was Research Coordinator for ASU's Center for Environmental Studies and the administrative project manager for the Central Arizona - Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project for its initial six years. Prior to that Shears was Project Manager for the Office of Cultural Resource Management (now within SHESC) and for the 8-year archaeological Roosevelt Platform Mound Study. She has directed a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded computer indexing project for research collections of the Museum of the American Indian and a Federal Highway Administration-funded ISTEA grant to electronically archive 32 reports on the archaeology of central Phoenix. Shears is active in the local community currently serving on the Tempe Historic Preservation Commission; previously as a member of Tempe Community Council and board member of Valley Forward, Downtown Tempe Community Association, and Arizona Yacht Club.