William James Sutherland CBE FRS[1][2] (born 27 April 1956) is the Director of Research at the University of Cambridge Department of Zoology, and was previously the Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology.

[5] Sutherland's research interests largely involve predicting the consequences of environmental change.

Two of his key contributions have been the horizon scanning exercises to identify future priority issues and the 100 important questions in various disciplines (ecology,[6] poverty prevention,[7] global agriculture and food[8] amongst others.

[10] Sutherland was awarded the Natural Environment Research Council postdoctoral fellowship to join Wolfson College, Oxford in 1980–82.

[13] Sutherland was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to evidence-based conservation.,[1] and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2023.