The Natural Capital Project is led by an interdisciplinary team of core scientists and project leaders from Stanford, The Nature Conservancy, and World Wildlife Fund. Strategic advisors and collaborators come from these three partner organizations as well as other institutions.
Directors
Gretchen Daily, Ph.D.
Professor of Biological Sciences
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.
Peter Kareiva, Ph.D.Chief Scientist, The Nature Conservancy
Natural Capital Project co-founder Kareiva is the project’s liaison with The Nature Conservancy, while also offering strategic vision and leadership. Kareiva’s interests encompass agriculture, conservation, ecology, and the interface of science and policy. In addition to a long academic career, including faculty positions at Brown University, the University of California at Santa Barbara and elsewhere, he has worked for NOAA Fisheries for three years, and was Director of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center Conservation Biology Division. Academically, Kareiva is best known for contributions to insect ecology, landscape ecology, risk analysis, mathematical biology, and conservation. His current projects emphasize the interplay of human land-use and biodiversity, resilience in the face of global change, and evidence-based conservation.
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.
Team
Chris Colvin
Natural Capital Project Assistant
Colvin, who handles research and administrative tasks for the Natural Capital Project, discovered his passion for conservation science as an undergrad studying Integrative Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. He has studied lizards at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, tropical ecology in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and Redwood Trees in California. Colvin has worked as a biologist for the U.S. Forest Service Sierra Nevada Amphibian Monitoring Project, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, and Yellowstone National Park.
Steve CoxVice President, World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US)
Cox brings 27 years of international development and conservation experience to his role as a policy liaison with the Natural Capital Project. He has held senior executive positions with The Nature Conservancy, the World Resources Institute, the Ford Foundation, INCAE, and Acceso, a non-profit consulting firm that he founded in Costa Rica, and currently serves as the US lead for WWF’s project in the Gulf of California. Cox has spent more than half of his career in residence in Latin America (Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru, and Guatemala), and has a B.A. in Latin American Economic Development from Berkeley with a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard.
Driss Ennaanay, Ph.D.Water Resources and Hydrology Modeler
Ennaanay develops and applies water models for the Natural Capital Project. He brings strong experience in water resources management and has developed hydrologic models using highly parameterized and very comprehensive models in complex ecosystems from humid to arid eco-regions. He earned a Masters in Agricultural Engineering at the Agronomic Institute II in Morocco and a Ph.D. in Water Resources at the University of Minnesota. He has worked as irrigation engineer in Morocco, and most recently as an environmental consultant to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), watershed districts, and many water agencies around the US on water resources and water quality issues.
John FordStanford Foundation
Ford is playing a leading role in coordinating communications among the three Natural Capital Project partners: The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and Stanford University. He is also spearheading fundraising efforts and helping to guide strategic communications. Ford has been at Stanford’s Development Office since 1986, becoming Vice President for Development in 1988.
Charles Katz, Jr.Katz Family Ventures
Katz brings 25 years of legal and business expertise to his role as an advisor on management and several of the Natural Capital Project strategic initiatives. He will also be leading efforts to form a Natural Capital Project International Advisory Council. Previously, he practiced corporate finance law at Perkins Coie, Seattle, Washington, and then served as Executive Vice President of Opsware, Inc., a Sunnyvale, California infrastructure technologies software company. Currently he sits on the board of outdoor retailer REI, Inc. and has been active with the World Wildlife Fund and other conservation organizations. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Woods Institute for the Environment and Stanford's School of Earth Sciences.
Emily McKenzieNatural Capital Project Lead - Policy and Finance
McKenzie is developing tools to enable ecosystem services information to be effectively incorporated into decisions, policies, and finance systems. She has used environmental economics to influence policy in the Pacific, Caribbean, and Europe, including black pearl farming in the Cook Islands, aggregates extraction in the Marshall Islands, and forest biodiversity in Montserrat. She has built environmental economics programs and projects - leading research, developing toolkits, training staff, and providing policy advice. She previously worked as environmental economics advisor to the UK government, based at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. In 2003-2005, she was awarded an Overseas Development Institute Fellowship, based at the Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji. McKenzie received a Masters Degree in International Policy Studies from Stanford University, and a Bachelors Degree in Economics from Cambridge University.
Guillermo Mendoza, Ph.D.Natural Capital Project Hydrologist
Mendoza is developing eco-hydrology and water systems models for the Natural Capital Project. His research interests are conceptual process modeling, shared vision planning, the use of community knowledge or “soft data,” and step-wise complexity approach to water balance analysis. These interests cater to providing water resources managers and decision-makers with tools that can be applied in areas with varying quality and quantity of data. He has worked with USAID on watershed management projects in Honduras and El Salvador, developed water quality models at New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and provided expertise for guides to watershed services in the Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences and as a consultant for the World Bank.
Katie MurphyAdministrative Assistant, World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US)
Murphy splits her time between assisting the Natural Capital Project's managing director and providing administrative support to the WWF Conservation Science Program. She comes from a background in international development, most recently with CNFA (Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs), an agriculture-focused organization, where she worked on proposal development, recruitment of project consultants, and field office support. Murphy has volunteered with indigenous communities in northern Argentina and central Ecuador, contributing to livelihood improvement projects built on sustainable use of surrounding natural resources. She received a B.A. in Social Work from Colorado State University and Certificate in Community-Based Development from the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Erik Nelson, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford University
Nelson is working with the Natural Capital Project to develop a set of tools for mapping and modeling ecosystem service values across the landscape. Nelson is particularly interested in determining how sensitive valuation calculations are to choice of mapping scale, availability of data, and model parameter uncertainty. Nelson received his Ph.D. from the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota with a concentration in Environmental Economics and a minor in Conservation Biology.
Steve Polasky, Ph.D.Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics, University of Minnesota
Polasky is one of the leaders of the Natural Capital Project’s ecosystem service mapping and valuation effort. At the University of Minnesota, Polasky holds the Fesler-Lampert Chair in Ecological/Environmental Economics. His research interests include biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, integrating ecological and economic analysis, renewable energy, and game theory. Polasky was the senior staff economist for environment and resources for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1998-1999, and served as associate editor and co-editor for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from 1996 to 2002. Today he’s a member of the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee and the Committee on Valuing the Protection of Ecological Systems and Services for the Science Advisory Board of U.S. EPA.
Jim Regetz, Ph.D.Scientific Programmer/Analyst, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
Regetz is working with the Natural Capital Project team to develop a consistent vision for building and implementing InVEST models. At NCEAS, he consults with a broad array of scientists facing quantitative and computational challenges. His research activities all share a common thread of data analysis, modeling, and information management, with past projects including topics such as science planning for endangered species, salmon population dynamics, and crop pollination services. Regetz received a Masters degree in Environmental Science and Management from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University.
James SalzmanProfessor of Law, Duke University
Salzman is leading development of the Natural Capital Project’s policy and finance tools. At Duke, he holds joint appointments as Professor of Law and as the Nicholas Institute Professor of Environmental Policy. In dozens of academic articles, he has addressed topics spanning trade and environment conflicts, the history of drinking water management, and wetlands mitigation banking. He has also written extensively on the legal and institutional issues involved in creating markets for ecosystem services. From 1998-2000, he was the Principal Investigator on an EPA STAR grant exploring the statutory authority for EPA to conserve ecosystem services. From 2002-2003, he served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Australia, working with the Sydney Catchment Authority to develop an ecosystem services market for water purification.
M.A. Sanjayan, Ph.D.Lead Scientist, The Nature Conservancy
Sanjayan is spearheading the Natural Capital Project’s efforts to use ecosystem services approaches to improve the lives of the poor. Collaborating with scientists and conservationists, he is specifically attempting to improve understanding of African eco-regions and of threats such as climate change and private land development to successful conservation. Born in Sri Lanka, Sanjayan grew up in Africa and completed his PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After a stint at the World Bank, he joined TNC in 1999, first as the Director of Science for the California Program, and later as one of TNC’s three Lead Scientists. He has a faculty appointment at University of Montana, where he occasionally teaches graduate seminar classes.
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.
Heather Tallis, Ph.D.Natural Capital Project Lead Scientist
Tallis is working with a team from Stanford, WWF, TNC and other universities to develop a set of tools to model and map ecosystem service values in given landscapes. Tallis’ research interests include marine ecology, ecosystem science, biogeochemistry, and traditional knowledge systems. She has explored resource management options with Penan communities in Borneo, villagers in Cambodia, timber and aquaculture industries in Washington (USA) and a hydropower company in New Zealand. Her academic research has focused on the biological consequences of nutrient and carbon flows in the open ocean, coastal zone, rivers and forests. Tallis received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington and has won awards from Rotary International, the Ford Foundation and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, among others.
Christine TamNatural Capital Project Director
Tam is the main go-between for TNC, WWF, and Stanford staff. She also coordinates communication among demonstration sites in California, China, Hawaii, and Tanzania, developing project priorities and strategies. In addition, she is the lead scientist for the Natural Capital Project’s China demonstration site. Tam comes from TNC, where she served as Deputy Director of Conservation Programs in China. This followed four years in TNC’s California program, guiding conservation planning throughout the state. Her interests include community-based conservation, natural resource management and capacity building, and conservation planning. She received her B.A. in Biology from Harvard University, and her M.S. in Resource Ecology and Management from the University of Michigan.
Barton H. “Buzz” Thompson Jr.Director, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Thompson is one of the Natural Capital Project’s principle experts in policy and finance, while also acting as a key liaison with The Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford. A national expert in environmental and natural resources law and policy, he has contributed a large body of scholarship on environmental issues ranging from the future of endangered species and fisheries to the use of innovative economic strategies to support conservation. He is the founding director of Stanford University’s Law School’s Environmental and Natural Resources Program, the Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law, and a board member of the Nature Conservancy of California and the American Farmland Trust. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1986, Thompson was a partner at O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, a lecturer at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, and a law clerk to the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.
R. Michael WrightNatural Capital Project Managing Director
Wright serves as the project’s chief executive officer, with overall responsibility for setting strategy, developing a business plan, and directing project management. Wright has been a leading figure in global conservation for more than 30 years. From 2002 to 2007, he was director of conservation and sustainable development at the MacArthur Foundation. From 1994 to 2002, he served as president and chief executive officer of the African Wildlife Foundation. Wright has also held several key positions at WWF, including senior vice president, directing all programs in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. In 1980, Wright served as an assistant director of President Jimmy Carter’s Task Force on Global Resources and Environment. He also helped launch TNC’s international program in 1974 and served as its first director until 1979. Wright earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Stanford University and a law degree from Stanford Law School.