I am a Postdoctoral Fellow and Researcher at the Smart Prosperity Institute at the University of Ottawa. I am an economist by training, and I hold a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, where I studied topics at the intersection of economics and the environment. At SPI my main job is conducting research on nature-based solutions for climate, with a particular focus on market mechanisms to store more carbon in forests, while also conserving biodiversity and generating economic benefits. My other research interests and projects are related to environmental regulation and pollution control in developed countries, and impacts of pollution in developing countries. Before joining UBC, I worked as a research analyst for the World Bank in Washington DC, on projects based in Latin America.

Dr. Kathryn Harrison is Professor of Political Science and Brenda and David McLean Chair of Canadian Studies at the University of British Columbia.  She received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering before completing her PhD in Political Science. Professor Harrison has worked in the oil industry and as a policy analyst for both Environment Canada and the United States Congress. She has served as Senior Associate Dean and Acting Dean in the UBC Faculty of Arts. Harrison has published widely on Canadian and US climate policy. She is chair of the Expert Advisory Panel on climate mitigation of the Canadian Climate Institute and a member of British Columbia’s Climate Solutions Council.  Harrison is a frequent media commentator on climate policy, and tweets at @profkharrison.

Dr. Juliet Lu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management and the School for Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. She is a political ecologist focused on the implications of China’s growing investments in land and other resources in Southeast Asia and beyond. Dr. Lu’s research examines conflicts and governance issues around resource extraction and intensive land use. She focuses on transnational land investments, namely Chinese rubber plantations in Laos, the promotion of monoculture plantations at the expense of more biodiverse systems, and the rise of private sector sustainable governance initiatives worldwide. She is looking to work with students interested in conducting grounded research around land conflicts, cash crop-driven land use change, and Chinese investments.

Dr. Carolyn Smyth is a Research Scientist at the Canadian Forest Service (Natural Resources Canada) in Victoria, BC.  Her research includes assessment of climate change mitigation scenarios for Canada’s forest sector including ecosystem modeling, harvested wood product tracking, and substitution benefits of using wood in place of other emissions-intensive products and energy sources. She has contributed to Canada’s National Inventory Reports, Emissions Trend Reports, an IPCC TSU expert meeting on National GHG Inventories, and has collaborated on North American C Modeling through the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and the North American Forest Commission.

Dr. Peter Wood has worked in the field of international forest policy, human rights and sustainability for over two decades in a variety of roles, including with non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations. He has served on various international expert bodies, such as the Global Expert Panel on International Forest Governance (IUFRO), and has been involved in the development of multilateral agreements on climate change and biodiversity. He completed his PhD in Forestry at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Neil Leveridge, Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry, is at the forefront of educational innovation, blending technology with inclusive teaching practices. His expertise in employing Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI), and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles has transformed how forestry communication is taught and practiced. With a leadership background in guiding English language instruction for a broad association of professionals, Dr. Leveridge understands the power of language in uniting diverse learners and advancing sustainability goals. He joins the IFSA-UBC Conference to share his vision for communication that champions adaptability and inclusivity in the face of environmental change.

Dr. Fernanda Tomaselli is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Forestry and Coordinator of UBC’s Land One program. She has an interdisciplinary background with expertise in environmental communication, ecological economics and conservation, with more than five years of experience teaching higher education courses related to forestry, climate change and sustainability. Dr. Tomaselli holds a BSc. in Environmental Communication from Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador, and an MSc. and PhD. from UBC’s Faculty of Forestry.

Dr. Hamish van der Ven (PhD, University of Toronto) is Assistant Professor of Sustainable Business Management of Natural Resources in the Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia. He is the leader of the Business, Sustainability and Technology Lab. His research focuses on sustainable supply chain governance and the impacts of digital technologies on environmental outcomes. Read more about his current and future research on his website: https://hamishvanderven.com/.

Viola Jasmine Provost is a PhD student in the Business, Sustainability, and Technology Lab in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia. Her current research focuses on examining the social, political, and cultural implications of emerging technologies. Specifically, she explores how the environment and science are communicated on social media in the context of marine conservation. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and a Master of Science in Freshwater and Marine Biology from the University of Amsterdam, along with a Major in Science Communication from Vrije University.

Debbie Pierce is a PhD student in the Sunderland lab. Her research is in tropical forestry, land tenure, and gender. She graduated with a double major in economics and environmental policy from the University of Michigan and received a masters in environmental science and management from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she worked to develop a business model for the sale of biochar on California farms and vineyards. While at the University of California, Santa Barbara she worked with Dr. Gary Libecap on a land demarcation and land value project in California and Ohio. Prior to beginning her PhD she spent four years at the World Bank in Washington, DC working with indigenous peoples, gender and forestry issues. During this time she worked in Latin America and Africa, specifically working with forest-dependent communities in Mexico, Peru, Brazil and Burkina Faso.

Shintia D. Arwida Indonesian origin. She is pursuing her doctoral study in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on customary government, indigenous people, gender, and sustainable forest landscapes. Shintia started her career as a journalist and developed expertise in communications and publishing, both for commercial and nonprofits. She then cultivated more interest in research and joined CIFOR which shaped her knowledge of REDD+, gender, and sustainable development. She later joined UNOPS which sharpened her program management skills and knowledge of peatland restoration. She also acted as a gender focal point during her tenure with UNOPS Indonesia. Prior to pursuing her doctorate study, she worked in the climate change mitigation and adaptation sector, specializing on development of Nature-based Solution Projects in Asia and the Pacific. Shintia holds master’s degree in social studies and environment from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. 

Fideline Mboringong is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry. She is keenly interested in the governance of transnational land investments, particularly in mining and infrastructure sectors within forest landscapes, focusing on the Congo Basin. Her passion lies in participating in discussions on mining and infrastructure investments to advocate for sustainable outcomes for forest communities and the environment. Fideline’s research journey is rooted in her background at WWF Cameroon, where she spent eight years monitoring investments in the mining, infrastructure, and agriculture sectors. She employs a transdisciplinary approach in her research, aiming to delve deeper into the intricacies of these issues within the Congo Basin. Before joining VFL, Fideline was the Sustainable Development Hub Coordinator for WWF Governance Practice.

Fideline holds a Master’s degree in International Cooperation (Environmental Management and Sustainable Development) from the International Relations Institute of Cameroon (IRIC) and Università Cà Foscari of Venice.

Alida O’Connor is a PhD student working under the supervision of Dr. Terry Sunderland. Her research contributes to COLANDS, a collaborative initiative between UBC, the University of Amsterdam, and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) that follows the process of operationalizing integrated landscape approaches in Ghana, Zambia, and Indonesia. Alida’s work seeks to understand land use priorities, decision making power, and collaborative natural resource management in Ghana and Zambia. 

Dr. Jeff Sayer is an ecologist who began work In African savannas. His research and conservation activities brought him into contact with poor rural people trying to improve their livelihoods in the wildlife rich areas around parks and reserves. Work on the interface between people and nature led Jeff to work on nature conservation projects in Afghanistan, Myanmar and Thailand where conflicts between conservation and poverty alleviation were widespread.

In 1983 Jeff initiated the Global Forest Conservation Programme of the International Union for Conservation of Nature – IUCN. This program focussed on forest conservation in low income countries throughout the tropics and was heavily involved in actions to improve the livelihoods of people in the forests.  In 1993 he was appointed founding Director General of CIFOR (Centre for International Forestry Research) where he championed a multi‐disciplinary, ecosystem approach to sustainable forest management.  He has also worked at various times for the World Bank and WWF International and has been a faculty member of Utrecht University in Holland, James Cook University in Australia and now the University of British Columbia.

In almost all of his work Jeff has been confronted with reconciling the interests of poor local people with conserving global environmental values. He has maintained a strong interest in systems and landscape approaches to reconciling conservation and development. He believes strongly that forest conservation and management will never be sustainable in situations where local people live in extreme poverty.

Dr. Lori Daniels is the inaugural Koerner Chair of the Centre for Wildfire Coexistence in the Faculty of Forestry at UBC-Vancouver. She also directs the Tree-Ring Lab at UBC. Lori investigates the impacts of natural and human disturbances and climate change on forests. With her research team, she has on-going projects on wildfires, forest dynamics, and social-ecological resilience to climate change across British Columbia. Her enduring partnerships with local, provincial, and national governments, environmental organizations, forest management companies, community forests, and First Nations ensure her scientific advances are translated to active conservation, restoration and management. She contributed to the Blueprint for Wildland Fire Science in Canada and served as a member of the Canadian Wildfire Strategy Implementation Team and the NSERC-Canada Wildfire Research Network. Since 2015, she has given more than 350 media interviews on wildfires and their impacts on forests and communities. She is among the 150 Canadian Scientists recognized in 2017 for research shaping new frontiers and making our world a better place (#150Scientists). She was received the 2019 Canadian Institute of Forestry Scientific Achievement Award, 2022 Distinguished Career Award in Biogeography from Association of American Geographers, and 2023 Distinguished Leader in Research Award from the Association of Fire Ecologists.

Dr. Kai Chan is a sustainability scientist whose work straddles social and natural systems with a focus on values, rewilding, and transformative change. He is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (Rewilding and Social-Ecological Transformation) at the University of British Columbia. Kai leads CHANS lab, where inspiring students study Connected Human-and-Natural Systems. Kai is also a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists (2017), a former Coordinating Lead Author of the IPBES Global Assessment, a Lead Editor for the new journal People and Nature, a member of Canada’s Clean16 for 2020, a TEDx speaker, and co-founder of CoSphere (a Community of Small-Planet Heroes).

Dr. Rachel White is an Assistant Professor in atmospheric sciences in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. Her research focusses on understanding the large-scale atmospheric circulation, in particular how different circulation patterns lead to extreme weather events, including temperature extremes (heatwaves and cold snaps), and heavy precipitation. She is also working to better understand whether recent changes in such circulation patterns can be attributed to human impacts on the climate, and how these patterns may change in the future under different climate change scenarios. Rachel and her Climate Dynamics group at UBC analyse observational data, runs climate models and analyse output from the state-of-the-art climate models from the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Following the June 2021 unprecedented heatwave over the Pacific Northwest, Rachel led a multi-disciplinary team in writing a paper that summarizes this event and its impacts. Rachel is currently contributing to Canada’s Changing Climate Report (CCCR) 2025.

Dr. Sarah Dickson-Hoyle is a postdoctoral research fellow in the UBC Faculty of Forestry, and a former official and longstanding member of IFSA. As an interdisciplinary and community action researcher, she works collaboratively with local and First Nation communities to understand the impacts of wildfire and other disturbances on ecological and cultural values, and to identify opportunities for improving collaborative governance of fire and forests in British Columbia. Originally from Australia, she has over ten years’ experience in natural resource management, carbon forestry and ecological consulting. She has held multiple official positions with IFSA, including Liaison Officer with the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the inaugural Head of Mentoring Sub-Commission, and was a founding member of the Youth in Landscapes Initiative.

Meet María Luna Santacruz, a fifth-year Bachelor of Urban Forestry and a minor in Landscape and Recreation Planning, María loves decoding climate complexities and rallying communities towards environmental stewardship. From diving deep into forest ecology literature to crafting captivating campaigns that ignite hearts and minds, María’s journey is passionate about action and impact. Whether she’s educating eager minds at Parks Canada, trekking through Ecuador’s cloud forests, or leading eco-tourism initiatives, María tackles challenges to make the future greener than ever.

Yawei is a second-year Master’s student at the University of British Columbia (UBC) with a preceding MSc in Sustainable Environmental Management. Yawei brings to the table a multi-disciplinary background in agriculture, forestry, public health, plant science, environmental science, and sustainability.

As a certified Forest Bathing Guide and forest therapy practitioner, her current research focuses on forest therapy’s health benefits. Yawei has showcased her research and presenter expertise in various academic settings while demonstrating exceptional organizational and leadership skills in planning academic events.

Passionate about forestry and nature on a broader scale, her goal is to bridge scientific research and community engagement to foster a more sustainable and health-conscious relationship between humanity and the natural world.