California
Rebecca Shaw, Ph.D.
Director of Conservation Science, The Nature Conservancy of California
Shaw is the lead scientist for the Natural Capital Project’s Sierra Nevada demonstration site. She has also played a key role in launching the Natural Capital Project team developing new mapping and modeling approaches. At TNC, Shaw manages an interdisciplinary group of scientists and technical experts that is working to incorporate the best available scientific information into the full array of TNC programs. Prior to joining TNC, Shaw conducted research at the Department of Global Ecology on the impacts of global change on ecosystems processes and biodiversity. The results of her research have been published in leading academic journals including Science and Nature. She received her M.A. in environmental policy and her PhD in energy and resources from the University of California at Berkeley.
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China
Chen Min
Ecosystem Services China Program Manager
Chen Min is coordinating the Natural Capital Project's efforts in China, developing relationships with key national and local stakeholders, engaging natural resources experts, and working with and supporting the ecosystem service-related programs of both TNC and WWF. Chen Min worked for 4 years with the European Commission as the Project Manager in charge of European Union's $40 million biodiversity program in China. She also has nearly a decade of experience in China's State Forestry Administration. Chen Min received a Master's degree from the University of Queensland, Australia, in Environmental Management, and has specialized in natural resource management, environmental policy, and sustainable development.
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Hawai'i
Gretchen Daily, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Daily, an ecologist whose work ranges from conservation science to environmental policy analysis to public outreach, is one of three founders of the Natural Capital Project and serves as its chief emissary to financial and government leaders. She is working to develop a scientific basis - and political and institutional support - for managing Earth's life-support systems. Daily has published more than 150 scientific and popular articles. Her most recent book is “The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable,” coauthored with journalist Katherine Ellison (2002, Island Press). She serves on the boards of The Nature Conservancy and the Beijer International Institute for Ecological Economics, and at Stanford she is Director of the Center for Conservation Biology.
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Indonesia
Nirmal Bhagabati
Senior Program Officer (Ecosystem Services), World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US) Conservation Science Program
Bhagabati leads WWF's efforts to apply InVEST in priority field sites. He developed an interest in conservation growing up in the biodiversity-rich region of northeast India near the Eastern Himalayas. After completing undergraduate work in India in biology and computer science, Bhagabati pursued doctoral research at the State University of New York, studying geographic variation in birds (Mexican Jays) in the southwestern US and northern Mexico. Subsequently, he studied the genetics of an avian hybrid zone at the Smithsonian Institution, and then worked as a bioinformatics analyst at The Institute for Genomic Research, where he developed software, analyzed data, and trained biologists in data analysis. Bhagabati also has a degree in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology from the University of Maryland. He has worked with several environmental organizations, including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Conservation International, the National Wildlife Federation and World Wildlife Fund, on diverse projects including GIS-based analyses of human dimensions of conservation, biofuels, tropical deforestation and climate change policy, and landscape-level conservation planning.
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Northern Andes and Southern Central America
Silvia Benitez
Conservation Projects Manager and Ecosystems Services Coordinator
The Nature Conservancy
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Tanzania
Taylor Ricketts, Ph.D.
Director of Conservation Science, World Wildlife Fund
Natural Capital Project co-founder Ricketts is the project’s liaison with World Wildlife Fund, and, like Kareiva, provides strategic guidance. His interests span a broad range of topics in ecology and conservation biology, from global analyses of biodiversity patterns to field studies on the ecological and economic effects of land-use change. Ricketts led WWF’s conservation assessment of North American eco-regions, the first in a continuing series published by Island Press. Ricketts’ current research focuses on the agricultural value of wild pollinators and their habitats, and on mapping the economic costs and benefits of conservation. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and has been recognized with awards from the Society for Conservation Biology, the National Science Foundation, the Summit Foundation, and others.