Montserrat Acosta-Morel is an Operations Officer for the International Finance Corporation, one of the World Bank Group’s private sector development arms. She is supporting the implementation of the new Climate Change Action Plan that aims to deliver record levels of climate finance to developing countries, reduce emissions, strengthen adaptation, and align financial flows with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Formerly, Montse served as an Applied Scientist for the Caribbean Division of The Nature Conservancy, based in her homeland, the Dominican Republic. In this role, she supported the Caribbean team in leading the development of science-based analyses and products including innovative academic research, managing projects and teams, monitoring and evaluation, climate adaptation, and making the economic case for coral reef restoration to abate climate-driven hazards, as well as geographic information systems (GIS).

Montse received a Ph.D. in the economics of climate change mitigation from Ohio State University, where she focused on the costs of carbon sequestration and potential leakage effects at a global level. Upon completing her Ph.D., she joined TNC as a Climate Change Adaptation Specialist, a role she later fulfilled at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), working with local and national government counterparts in building their capacities on climate change adaptation and local-level, urban planning. She is also an avid triathlete and marathoner, mindfulness trainer, certified yoga instructor, and amateur open water diver.

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Dr. Sam Cheng is WWF’s Director for Conservation Evidence and works across the organization and with external organizations to advance evidence-informed practice in conservation programs. She has extensive experience partnering with government agencies, conservation non-profits, multilateral institutions, and foundations to systematically evaluate the impact of conservation on ecological and social outcomes and identify key insights to guide policy, practice, and research. Her work also focuses on the process of utilizing evidence to inform decisions in conservation and development. She works with diverse partners to understand where, when, and how to provide timely and responsive evidence for different policy and program scenarios. Most recently, she was the founding co-director of the Conservation Solutions Lab, a multi-institutional initiative aimed to design evidence-informed approaches to community engagement in biodiversity conservation and sits on the National Ocean Protection Coalition’s Science Advisory Team.

Prior to joining WWF, Dr. Cheng was a scientist at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History where she was the lead for the first U.S.-based center with the global Collaboration for Environmental Evidence and the Research and Evidence Lead for USAID’s Integrated Natural Resource Management Activity. Throughout her career, she has worked to develop and improve open-source methods and tools for identifying, synthesizing, and delivering evidence for pressing policy questions for conservation and development.

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Dr. Emily Darling is a distinguished coral reef ecologist and leads WCS’s global coral reef conservation program. Her research in coral reef ecology, conservation, and climate change has earned international recognition and research awards. As the Director of Coral Reef Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Emily coordinates coral reef science, conservation, and policy with WCS programs and partners worldwide. Passionate about supporting coral reef monitoring scientists and data science, she co-founded MERMAID – a ground-breaking coral reef monitoring platform endorsed by the United Nations. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto and has published >75 scientific publications. With 15+ years of experience, Emily’s dedication to coral reef conservation extends beyond research; she spearheads strategic partnerships, fundraising, and impact initiatives for WCS’s global coral reef portfolio in 12 countries and is a skilled scientific diver and underwater photographer who is passionate about inspiring hope and action for climate resilient coral reefs. Between 2019 and 2022, she led the Coastal Outcomes SNAPP working group and is thrilled to bring this experience to the SNAPP Science Advisory Committee.

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James (J.T.) Erbaugh is an Applied Social Scientist with The Nature Conservancy and a Research Associate/Lecturer at Dartmouth College. He specializes in environmental governance and policy.

His work investigates how groups make rules or provide incentives for the management of environmental resources, and how those rules or incentives effect social, economic, and environmental change. As a quantitative social scientist, J.T. uses statistical models to analyze data from surveys, censuses, and remotely sensed imagery. He often complements such analyses with mixed-methods findings from interviews and focus-group discussions. J.T.’s recent research contributes to better understanding community-based resource management, national policies for forest and fisheries management, the socioeconomic dimensions of global forest restoration, as well as the role of information and group deliberation in promoting sustainable development.

J.T. retains an academic appointment in the Department of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College as an affiliated faculty member and lecturer. Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, J.T. was a National Science Postdoctoral Fellow in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. He has a BA in Philosophy and Environmental Studies from Miami University, an MPhil in Geography from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in Natural Resource Policy and Behavior from the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. J.T.’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the World Bank, the IUCN, the Institute for Social Research, the Social Science Research Council, and other generous supporters. Before beginning his research career, J.T. taught middle school science on the Navajo Nation with Teach for America, and he taught conversational English through the Fulbright Program in Java, Indonesia.

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Jon Fisher leads Pew’s efforts to design and plan research projects on land and in freshwater habitats, and contributes to the Trusts’ exploration of new environmental lines of work, including the sustainable management of global natural resources.

Before joining Pew, Fisher worked at The Nature Conservancy in a variety of global science roles, including developing sustainability impact metrics, data management, conservation planning, sustainable agriculture, and corporate sustainability. His research focused on how to deliver the information needed to make conservation decisions more efficiently and effectively. He also worked at the University of Illinois on a project to reduce airplane-bird strikes through custom radar and ecological spatial analysis.

Fisher holds a bachelor’s degree in forestry, a bachelor’s degree in natural resources and environmental sciences, and a master’s degree in environmental engineering with a concentration in stream ecology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Germán Forero Medina graduated in biology from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, where he studied the population ecology and natural history of the white-throated mud turtle in a Caribbean Island in Colombia. In 2007 he received his MS degree from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, studying the perceptual and dispersal abilities of small marsupials from the Atlantic forest and implications for landscape functional connectivity. In 2012 he received his PhD in conservation ecology from Duke University, in North Carolina, USA, as a Fulbright Scholar. His doctoral dissertation addressed the issue of elevational range shifts in tropical mountains as a result from climate disruption. His paper on this subject received the Dean’s Award for Outstanding PhD manuscript, by Duke University. His main research interests and expertise are tropical ecology, conservation biology, natural history of tropical vertebrates (reptiles, amphibians, and mammals), landscape ecology, climate change effects on tropical ecosystems, and impact evaluation on conservation programs. He has extensive field work experience in South America, having worked in Colombia, Brazil and Peru. He is a corresponding member of Colombia´s National Academy of Science.

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Carter has over 15 years of experience at the forefront of integrating nature into sustainable development across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States. Currently, Carter is an Executive Director at Pollination, a climate change investment and advisory firm with a mission to catalyze the transition to a low carbon economy with a focus on nature-based solutions. Prior to joining Pollination, Carter was a Senior Manager in EY’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services practice where she advised food/agriculture, real estate, infrastructure, and tourism businesses in designing and implementing ESG goals and strategies, programs and impact measurement, with a focus on natural capital. Carter’s previous experiences include launching and leading the Ecosystem Services program and the Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) for the Wildlife Conservation Society, where she worked with governments, multi-lateral institutions, NGOs and businesses to conduct scientific analyses, develop new collaborations, and implement initiatives to advance conservation and sustainable development globally. Carter completed a Post-doctoral fellowship at the Earth Institute of Columbia University and has a M.Sc. and D.Phil. from the School of Geography and the Environment of Oxford University. She has co-edited two books and written over 60 articles, reports and publications on biodiversity and ecosystem services, climate change, poverty reduction, and economic development. Carter is currently an Adjunct Associated Professor in the School for Foreign Service at Georgetown University and serves on the SNAPP Science Advisory Council, the Technical Advisory Council for the UNDP Equator Initiative, Terra Alpha Investments Advisory Board, and has been co-leading a USG working group on Natural Capital Accounting in the United States.

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Brian is an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Conservation of Change Lab at the University of Guelph. His research interests lie at the intersection of environmental governance, politics, and epistemology, and cover several environmental challenges, including climate change, biodiversity, and fisheries management. His research has been published in top international interdisciplinary journals and FAO publications.

He brings experience from other major research collaborations to the SNAPP Science Advisory Council, including the NSERC ResNet Strategic Network, the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative, and the Marine Environment Observation Prediction and Response Network.

Brian holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, as well as an M.Sc. from the University of Edinburgh, a Master of Marine Studies from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a B.Sc. from Dalhousie University. He is from Bedford, Nova Scotia.

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Jin Tong works as Science Director in The Nature Conservancy China Program, where she is responsible for leading a team to provide strategic and technical supports to conservation programs to demonstrate “science-based approach” of TNC. She has over 18+ year’s research and on-site practices in biodiversity conservation and natural resources management, specialized in conservation planning, monitoring and evaluation for conservation programs, protected areas governance and management, as well as biodiversity surveys and monitoring. Her experiences also extend around analytical work, case studies and policy briefs in nature-based solutions, watershed management, urban conservation, sustainable agriculture, among others. Jin serves as China coordinator of Conservation Coaches Network (CCNet), board member of International Land Conservation Network, executive member of Chinese Alliance of Civil Protected Areas, China expert group member of Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCA) Consortium, and board member of China Primatology Society.

Jin has been with TNC for more than 11 years and initially led the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey conservation project and participated in the national park pilot project. Then she moved on to oversee the monitoring, research and conservation planning for the first land trust reserves in China and accumulated abundant experiences in protected area planning, management and monitoring & evaluation. Jin holds a Ph.D. in Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology from Peking University, studying the socio-ecology and conservation biology of a critically endangered primate species in China.

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Dr. Trainor is the Landscape Ecologist for The Nature Conservancy’s Africa Program. She leads complex conservation planning analysis (in Zambia, Kenya, Gabon, and Angola) and provides team members and partners across Africa with analytical support for spatial analysis and modeling.  Dr. Trainor also has adjunct faculty status with the Biology Department at the University of Cincinnati.

She has over 25 years of experience using state-of-the-art ecological modeling tools and analytical methods to extract ecologically relevant insights from large and complex geospatial data sets (e.g., species observations, climate, and remotely sensed data). Dr. Trainor’s research interests across three distinct biological science disciplines (population ecology, wildlife conservation, and landscape ecology) have allowed her to integrate biological realism, landscape features, and human-influenced geographic processes into conservation practice. These insights have allowed her to develop robust and meaningful models that support regional conservation decision-making and actions on dynamic landscapes. This work has resulted in over 25 peer-reviewed publications in the scientific literature.

Dr. Trainor was a NatureNet Science Fellow at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, an M.S. in Wildlife Management and Conservation from Colorado State University, and a B.S. in Ecology from the University of New Hampshire.

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Doley Tshering is a Senior Natural Resource Management professional specializing in biodiversity and ecosystems with experience in global environmental efforts at country, regional and global levels.

He currently serves as a Principal Technical Advisor for Ecosystems and Biodiversity with the UNDP Nature Hub, based at the Bangkok Regional Hub. Doley provides leadership and strategic direction to the Ecosystem and Biodiversity portfolio and team with a focus on Asia-Pacific, LAC and Europe regions. In this role, Doley oversees effective project implementation and results delivery, represents UNDP in various global forums, and foster collaboration with stakeholders from governments, international organizations, media, and civil society.

Previously, Doley held the position of Deputy Global Manager for the GEF Small Grants Programme at the UNDP in New York. Before that, as a Regional Technical Advisor at the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub, Doley oversaw a portfolio of biodiversity and land degradation projects in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. Doley also worked as the Assistant Resident Representative with the UNDP Bhutan Country Office leading UNDP’s portfolio in the country on energy and environment. Before joining UNDP, Doley served the Government of Bhutan in various capacities.

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Michelle Wieland is the Socio-Economic Advisor for WCS Africa Program.  A Fulbright fellow with a PhD in conservation biology, she’s worked for the last two decades in Africa at the people-biodiversity interface.  Her focus is on strategic designs to reduce threats to wildlife through sound natural resource management, behavior change strategies, and the strengthening of socially and ecologically sustainable rural livelihoods.  With WCS since 2009, she has designed WCS’s bushmeat portfolio, led the development of the Africa program’s institutional capacity building developing for socio-economic teams, and directed the implementation of social monitoring systems for adaptive management.

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