[1] Born in Pennsylvania, Borer graduated from Oberlin College in 1991,[2] spent several years working outside academia, then returned to earn her Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2002 (advised by William W. Murdoch and Allan Stewart-Oaten).
[3] She went on to do postdoctoral training in the Integrative Biology Department at University of California, Berkeley with Cheryl Briggs,[2] then a second postdoc at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.
[citation needed] As a graduate student, Elizabeth Borer received the Lancaster Award for the best dissertation in the Biological Sciences at UC, Santa Barbara.
[10] In 2019, she was named a lifetime Fellow of the Ecological Society of America for transforming how ecologists do science through her leadership of the global Nutrient Network, and for advancing understanding of how global changes impact the composition, diversity, and function of ecosystems, including disease and microbes.
Disease-mediated nutrient dynamics: reciprocal relationships link host-pathogen interactions with ecosystem elements and energy.
Nature Communications 11: 6036 Grace, JB, TM Anderson, EW Seabloom, ET Borer et al. 2016.
Nature 529: 390-393 Harpole, WSH, LL Sullivan, EW Lind, J Firn, PB Adler, ET Borer et al. 2016.
Nature 508, 517–520[14] Borer, ET, WS Harpole, PB Adler, EM Lind, JL Orrock, EW Seabloom, MD Smith.
[17] Borer, ET, EW Seabloom, JB Shurin, KE Anderson, CA Blanchette, B Broitman, SD Cooper, BS Halpern.
[18] Collins, JP, AP Kinzig, NB Grimm, WF Fagan, D Hope, J Wu, and ET Borer.