Alumni
Joey Bernhardt
Graduate Student at the University of British Columbia
Joey Bernhardt continues her collaboration with NatCap as a student at the University of British Columbia focusing on the effects of climate change on ecosystem services. Joey began working on the Natural Capital Project's marine models in May 2010. Since then, she has been working on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, where the Natural Capital Project has partnered with the West Coast Aquatic Management Board to help bring science capacity to the marine spatial planning process. Joey also continues to work on the Habitat Risk Assessment model and the Marine Carbon model for the InVEST software suite.
Rebecca Goldman Benner, Ph.D.
Science Director, TNC North Carolina
Rebecca Goldman Benner is the Director of Science for TNC's North Carolina chapter. Rebecca received her PhD from the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) program at Stanford in 2008. Her PhD work analyzed the benefits and drawbacks of an ecosystem services approach to conservation. After Stanford, Rebecca joined The Nature Conservancy, where she worked on the design of outcome-based measures for payment for watershed service projects, called water funds, throughout Latin America. She studied the process of developing and implementing a payment for ecosystem services (PES) program, including how to ensure the programs met their goals. Rebecca joined the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 2010 as a Senior Associate focusing on environment projects in Brazil, Colombia, Panama, and Jamaica. In June 2012 she assisted in the design and launch of the IDB's biodiversity platform.
Jen Burke
Data Systems Manager, Puget Sound Partnership
Jen Burke is currently the Performance Data Systems Manager at the Puget Sound Partnership. At NatCap, Jen worked on InVEST freshwater model simulations as part of the CAMEO (Comparative Analysis of Marine Ecosystem Organization) project, a collaboration between NatCap and NOAA that explored how coastal watersheds affect the delivery of marine ecosystem services across Puget Sound, Galveston Bay, and the Chesapeake Bay. Jen holds an M.S. from Oregon State University.
Mike Carey, Ph.D
Research Fishery Biologist, USGS, Alaska Science Center
Mike Carey is currently a Research Fish Biologist at the USGS Alaska Science Center based in Anchorage, Alaska. From 2009 to 2012 Mike was a research associate of the National Research Council as part of NOAA Fisheries. While at NOAA, Mike worked with NatCap on fisheries modeling for the CAMEO (Comparative Analysis of Marine Ecosystem Organization) project. Mike earned his Ph.D from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, M.Sc. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and B.Sc. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Chris Colvin
Graduate Student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Chris Colvin is currently pursuing a master's of environmental management degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and is the Wyss Scholar for Land Conservation and Leadership in the Intermountain West. Chris worked as a project assistant at NatCap until 2008, supporting project administration and implementation. He studied biology as an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley.
Marc Conte, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Environmental Economics, Fordham University
Marc Conte is currently working as a professor of Environmental Economics at Fordham University. While with NatCap, he worked on developing and applying environmental service valuation models with the Natural Capital Project. Marc is particularly interested in the impact of policy mechanisms on the magnitude and location of service provision across the landscape. He received a Ph.D. from the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a fellow in the NSF-funded Economics and Environmental Science IGERT program.
Driss Ennaanay, Ph.D.
Program Leader, Riverside Technology
Driss Ennaanay is now a Program Leader at Riverside Technology. He specializes in international development and leads programs in water resources management, ecosystem services, climate change modeling, impact analysis and adaptation strategies, and rural development. Driss was formerly the lead hydrologist at NatCap, where he led the development and application of many InVEST hydrological models. Driss received a Ph.D. in water resources from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, a Master's of Engineering from the Institut Agronomique et Veteriniare Hassan II, Morocco and an Entrepreneurship Certificate from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Charlie Governali
Student, Dartmouth University
Charlie Governali is completing the last year of his undergraduate studies in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, Charlie continues to work with Guy Ziv on the parameterization and testing of new model forms for InVEST's biodiversity model. Prior to work at NatCap, Charlie conducted ecological research on shorebird biology in Alaska with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and on warbler demography at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. Previously, Charlie managed all seabird research and restoration activities at a coastal Maine field station for the National Audubon Society's Project Puffin. Charlie recently completed an Honors Thesis on prey pheromone preferences of the predacious Checkered beetle and its role in population fluctuations of a major timber pest, the Southern pine beetle.
Matthew Marsik, Ph.D.
Geospatial Scientist, TNC Washington State
Matt Marsik is a physical geographer specializing in surface hydrology modeling, climate variability, land cover change, GIS and remote sensing. He is currently working as a geospatial scientist for TNC's Washington State office. At NatCap, Matt pursued post-doc research as a hydrologist funded under a NSF-NOAA CAMEO grant to build InVEST water yield and nutrient models to evaluate tradeoffs between terrestrial and marine management strategies in Puget Sound, Chesapeake Bay, and Galveston Bay. Matt received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Geography and a B.Sc. in Geological Sciences from the University of Florida.
Guillermo Mendoza, Ph.D.
Civil Engineer at US Army Corps of Engineers
Guillermo Mendoza works as a Civil Engineer with the Institute for Water Resources (IWR) for the US Army Corps of Engineers, where he provides support to domestic water planning projects and helps to implement international projects through ICIWaRM, a center at IWR under the auspices of UNESCO. Prior to joining the IWR in 2008, Guillermo was the Lead Hydrologist for the Natural Capital Project, where he worked on the impact of climate change to ecosystem services and methods of modeling multiple ecosystem services and tradeoffs at landscape scales. Guillermo received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Erik Nelson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Economics, Bowdoin College
Erik Nelson is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Bowdoin College. Erik was our first postdoctoral economist and one of the original core team at NatCap, working on the earliest InVEST models to map and value environmental service values across the landscape. Erik continues to work on determining the sensitivity of valuation calculations to choice of mapping scale, data availability, and model parameter uncertainty. Erik Nelson worked with Steve Polasky at the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota for his Ph.D., and graduated from UMN with a concentration in Environmental Economics and a minor in Conservation Biology.
Michael Papenfus, Ph.D.
Environmental Economist at US EPA
Michael Papenfus now works as an environmental economist for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Michael worked for NatCap's marine team as an environmental economist. He earned his Ph.D. in environmental economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his bachelor's degree in environmental science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Manu Sharma
Hydrologist
Manu Sharma is currently working as a hydrologist for the New Zealand government. While at NatCap, he tested and developed InVEST hydrology models. Before coming to NatCap, he had four years of hydrologic modeling experience with a focus on climate change impacts on the hydrologic condition of watersheds. He previously worked in consulting as a water resources engineer and hydrogeologist. He earned a Masters degree in Civil Engineering with a specialization in Water Resources Engineering from McMaster University in Canada.
Dave Sutherland, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Geological Sciences, University of Oregon
Dave Sutherland is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Oregon, as well as core faculty in the Environmental Studies Program. He loves all things ocean, especially when he can dive in himself. While a Postdoctoral Fellow, Dave worked with NatCap on land-sea interactions as part of the CAMEO (Comparative Analysis of Marine Ecosystem Organization) collaborative project with NOAA. Dave studied the structure, variability, and large-scale impact of the East Greenland Coastal Current for his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography, which he received from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 2008. He received his B.A. in Mathematics from the University of North Carolina - Wilmington.
Heather Tallis, Ph.D.
Lead Scientist, The Nature Conservancy
Heather Tallis is continuing her work with the Natural Capital Project as a Lead Scientist with The Nature Conservancy. At TNC, Heather focuses on bringing science about people into the work of the Conservancy. Before moving over to TNC, Heather was a Lead Scientist at NatCap, managed the freshwater and terrestrial team, and led the development of NatCap's RIOS (Resource Investment Optimization System) software. Heather holds an M.S. in chemical oceanography from the University of California, Santa Cruz, a M.S. in marine ecology from the University of Otago in New Zealand and a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Washington. She is co-editor of NatCap's book, Natural Capital: The Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services.
Christine Tam
Trade and Investment Coordinator, WWF
Christine Tam is currently working at WWF as the Trade and Investment Coordinator for the Coastal East Africa program, covering Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique and focusing on China-Africa linkages. Christine was a member of NatCap's original core team and helped develop materials and strategy for the first InVEST models. At WWF Christine supports trade and investment to contribute to sustainable development and minimize negative social and environmental impacts. She has been with WWF since 2009, and previously worked as a Conservation Director for WWF - Democratic Republic of Congo. Prior to joining WWF, Christine worked with another one of NatCap's partners, TNC, as the Deputy Director of Conservation Programs for The Nature Conservancy in China. Christine received her B.A. from Harvard, and a Master's degree from the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources.