I work closely with Woodwell Climate’s tropical scientists and our Brazilian partner organization IPAM Amazônia. Our collaboration is currently focused on how to make COP30 in Brazil a catalytic moment for tropical forest conservation, with positive impacts for many years following the event.
In the Biden Administration, I served as Senior Advisor for Forests in the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate at the U.S. Department of State. Prior to my government service, I conducted research and writing as a Distinguished Senior Fellow at World Resources Institute (WRI). I also chaired the board of the Architecture for REDD+Transactions, chaired the Oslo Tropical Forest Forum, served as a U.S. Science Envoy, and spent a semester as a McCluskey Fellow in Conservation at the Yale School of the Environment. I am the lead author of the 2016 book, Why Forests? Why Now? which was written during my tenure at the Center for Global Development. In an earlier role at WRI, I established the Institutions and Governance Program, and before that, led work on development assistance policy for the World Wildlife Fund.
I have worked extensively in Indonesia, including five years based at the Ford Foundation’s Southeast Asia office in Jakarta early in my career, and a decade consulting from Washington for the Packard Foundation and the Climate and Land Use Alliance. I also served for six years with ambassadorial status as Director General of the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), for which I was decorated by the Government of France with the Order of Agricultural Merit. Recently, I was conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at their spring 2025 commencement, recognizing my accomplishments in environmental science and leadership.
Outside of work, I enjoy vegetable gardening (which produces discernible results more quickly than efforts to end deforestation), discussing politics with my husband (a former elected official), and being the humble servant of my 16-lb Maine Coon cat, Seismosaurus.
