Professor John Agard is a leading scientist from the Department of Life Sciences at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. 

Professor of Tropical Island Ecology, Agard was Head of the Department of Life Sciences at The UWI St. Augustine Campus for six years. He is currently Director of The UWI St Augustine Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. His qualifications include a BSc and PhD from The UWI and a Master of Science in Pollution and Environmental Control from the University of Manchester. 

Professor Agard has served on several global working groups. In 2020, he was appointed by UN Secretary-General, António Guterres to help draft the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report. He has been a Lead Author of the UN Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th and 5th Assessments; a Review Editor on the 6th Assessment Report, and has served as the Coordinating Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). 

At present, he is also an independent advisor on environment and sustainability policy to the Board of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, DC; he is a former member of the CARICOM Climate Change Task Force and a member of the Caribbean Sea Commission formed by the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) to advance the cause of integrated management of the Caribbean Sea. 

At the local level, Professor Agard has served as chairman of the Environmental Management Authority of Trinidad and Tobago for four terms. There he oversaw the development of the National Environmental Policy and several pieces of subsidiary legislation such as the Water Pollution Rules, the Environmentally Sensitive Areas Rules and the Environmentally Sensitive Species Rules.