Sustainability Leadership Fellow Cohort: 2017-2018
Ph.D. Student, Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources
Research Summary:My research investigates ways to measure and protect the benefits that humans receive from natural ecosystems, referred to as “ecosystem services”. I combine economic and ecological impact evaluation methods to measure the capacity of resource management and conservation programs to protect or augment the provision of ecosystem services. As member of an interdisciplinary NSF project, I am evaluating the effectiveness of a Payment for Ecosystem Services program in Mexico to incentivize changes to land-use within watersheds critical to provision of clean drinking water. This research enables calculation of the return-on-investment of resource management and conservation initiatives.