IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Ms. West is the Director of the IUCN Washington, D.C. Office. Prior to her tenure at IUCN, Ms. West was an experienced international environmental lawyer and diplomat, and a consultant on international environmental issues. From 1996 to 2003, she was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Fisheries in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs of the U. S. Department of State, with rank of Ambassador. Prior to 1996, Ms. West served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, and also in the Office of the General Counsel of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Ms. West received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.

Ang joined the IUCN Washington, D.C. Office as Financial Officer on April 06, 1998, and was named Senior Finance Manager in April 2008. Prior to joining IUCN Washington, D.C., Ang was the Senior Finance Officer of the IUCN Nepal office from December 1992 to March 31, 1998. Prior to IUCN Nepal, Ang worked for projects under the Government of Nepal jointly funded by the Government of Nepal and donors (such as Swiss Development Corporation, USAID, UNDP, World Bank and AsDB in Nepal).
 

At IUCN Washington DC, Ang is responsible for overall management of the Washington DC Office Finance Unit and submission of IUCN Financial Reports to US based donors. Ang also serves in the capacity of CFO of IUCN-US (a US non-profit organization) under contract between IUCN and IUCN-US.

Ang is a graduate of Tribuvan University in Nepal,  received his Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree from Strayer University in Washington, D.C. and is a Certified Public Accountant from the Commonwealth State of Viriginia.  Ang is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

Ang is married to Ms. Phurba Sherpa and has two boys, Kalden and Nima Gyalgen.
 

To contact Ang, please email him at ang.sherpa@iucn.org.

Debbie Good is the Human Resource Manager and the U.S. Membership Focal Point of the IUCN Washington, D.C. Office. She also serves as Executive Assistant to the Director.

Debbie began her career in the international environmental field in 1972 at the US Environmental Protection Agency where she worked in the Office of International Activities on various environmental issues. After spending 18 years in the government, Debbie joined the Environmental Defense Fund (an IUCN member), working with the International Counsel on climate change issues. She joined the IUCN Washington, D.C. Office in 1994 as the Executive Assistant to the Executive Director and soon thereafter took on management of human resources and membership for the office. Outside of work, Debbie enjoys spending time with her children and grandchildren, skiing and working with stained glass. 
 

To contact Debbie, please email her at deborah.good@iucn.org.

All the way from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Carlos has worked in the financial field for over 10 years.  Carlos worked for the Peace Corps here in Washington before returning to La Paz where he worked for the American Embassy as an accountant. After six years, Carlos and his family returned to the States as an accountant and book keeper for Booz Allen Hamilton and the PA Consulting Group. 

Carlos is married to Luz and they have three sons, Miguel, Leandro and Cristian. On the weekends Carlos enjoys spending time with his family and playing, watching or listening to soccer.

Carlos may be reached by email at carlos.mendez@iucn.org.

Hailing from the Isle of Spice Grenada, Roxanne Halley joined IUCN at the end of August 2011 as the Finance & Administrative Assistant for the team. She is a 2010 Graduate of the historical Howard University, receiving a BBA in the field of Accounting. In the summer of 2007 she interned with PricewaterhouseCoopers in her homeland, gaining financial experience from a Fortune 500 Company. She returned to the US to continue her studies and also to work as the Business Office Assistant for the University’s bookstore (reporting to the Accountant & Operations Manager) for the remainder of her academic life. In addition to juggling a part-time job and a full-time study grind, Roxanne also volunteered at The Messenger - WPFW 89.3fm here in Washington DC, where she hosted a 15-minute program called “The Pulse” reporting on Caribbean news and also interviewing Reggae & Dancehall artistes live on-air and in concert. In her quiet time she enjoys art, cooking, music, photography, reading, writing and traveling. 

Sajid Ali started working with IUCN in May 1998 at the Pakistan Country Office and then moved to the IUCN Asia Regional Office in Bangkok (Thailand) in May 1999 where he worked as a Human Resources Officer for IUCN Asia. In 2006 he moved to Hanoi (Vietnam) to take up the position of Country Group HR Manager for IUCN offices in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam.

In 2007 he was transferred to the IUCN Headquarters in Switzerland to establish global systems for compensation & benefits management, performance management, job evaluation etc. He is also the HR focal point for assisting the regional and outposted offices on operational HR matters.

From July 2011 Sajid’s position has been moved to the IUCN Washington DC Office where he currently works as a Human Resources Manager, Global HR Services.

Before joining IUCN, Sajid worked as a journalist in an English daily newspaper “The News” and has around 150 published articles. He also worked as an International Merchandiser in a leading cloth and garment manufacturing firm in Karachi.

Sajid has a SHRM certified Masters degree in HR Management, a post graduate degree in Law and a Bachelors degree in Commerce. His Master thesis topic was “comparative study of work environment as perceived by female and male professional employees in the NGO sector in Thailand and Pakistan”. 

Larissa Hotra is the Development and Strategic Partnerships Officer of the IUCN Washington, D.C. Office, part of the Strategic Partnerships Unit in Gland, Switzerland. Prior to joining IUCN, Larissa has worked for over six years on issues relating to the environment, including environmental education, justice, human rights, resource-based conflict, community-based conservation, green technology, development and sustainable agriculture.

Larissa holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs and a B.S. from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources.

To contact Larissa, please email her at larissa.hotra@iucn.org.

 Natalia Kostus has been a Project Manager for the IUCN Gender Office for the past four years with primary focus on project development and implementation, capacity building, policy analysis, and advocacy in relation to gender and environment. Trainer in 5 regional and global trainings of trainers and 5 updating sessions for UNFCCC government delegates on gender and climate change, she worked in the Arab countries, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Her educational background is in public administration (MPA, Baruch College) and international relations (BA, University of Indianapolis). Native of Poland, she previously worked at the Diplomatic Mission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, March of Dimes, UNDP, Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA), and Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). Advocate on gender equality, she joined women’s constituency processes in various UN fora: Rio+20; General Assembly, CSW, CSD, UNFCCC meetings in Poznan, Bonn, Bangkok, Copenhagen, and Cancun; and CBD meeting in Nagoya. She co-authored UNDESA and NGO CSW report for ECOSOC Annual Ministerial Review Financing Climate Change: Gender Equality and is currently working on harmonization process among the three Rio Conventions and GEF on gender, and developing regional and national gender-sensitive climate change strategies in South Caucasus.

Narinder Kakar is IUCN’s UN Permanent Observer in New York. Narinder will devote half of his time to working for IUCN and the other half to his work as Director of the UN Liaison Office in New York of the University for Peace. Narinder also serves as Visiting Professor to the University, teaching a course on the United Nations System.

An Indian citizen, Narinder has extensive experience of the UN, including 30 years' work with UNDP, both in New York and at country level, as UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative. He also was associated with the work of the IPCC.

Narinder obtained his B.A. from the Delhi Polytechnic and received a Diploma in Journalism from the Institute of Journalism in Delhi. He also received an MBA degree from Haceteppe University in Turkey. He was a Research Associate at Harvard University in Massachusetts, USA, in 1994, carrying out work in the field of social development.

He has served on a number of important boards and committees, including the UN Joint Staff Pension Board and the Board of Directors of the UN Federal Credit Union, of which he was Chairman. Within the United Nations he served as Chairperson of the UN Joint Appeals Board for a number of years.
 

Narinder may be contacted by email at Narinder.Kakar@iucn.org.

Carole Saint-Laurent is IUCN's Senior Advisor on Forest Policy and Partnerships, and coordinator of the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration. She has 20 years of experience in environmental policy and programme development.

To contact Carole, please email carsaintl@bellnet.ca.

A passion for islands and island people are the reasons that Kate Brown loves her job. Kate is from New Zealand (an island country) and spent eight years working on island issues at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme in Apia, Samoa prior to joining IUCN. She also worked in Western Australia on promoting sustainable farming systems in agriculture.

Kate now leads the GLISPA Coordination Unit based in IUCN Washington, D.C. Office. GLISPA is a partnership of which IUCN is a partner, with a steering committee to help with the functioning of the partnership.

The main focus of her work with GLISPA is to raise attention of island issues globally, facilitate the sharing of experiences between island countries and countries with islands, to support island leadership and commitment by facilitating both technical and financial resources to help islands meet their goals and to enable GLISPA members to work together to advance island conservation and sustainable livelihoods.

GLISPA is recognized as one of the mechanisms to advance the Convention on Biological Diversity’s island biodiversity programme of work and was called for by island leaders at the Mauritius international meeting for Small Island Developing States in 2005.

To contact Kate, please email kate.brown@iucn.org.

Jessica’s focus is on planning and implementation of communication initiatives that help to advance sustainable livelihoods and conservation of biodiversity for island communities. Jessica has a unique role that helps to advance the mission of the Global Island Partnership to promotes action for island conservation and sustainable livelihoods. IUCN is pleased to host the GLISPA Coordination Team as part of its commitment to the Partnership and island conservation.

As part of her role, Jessica also supports the coordination of strategic communication initiatives that use Entertainment-Education to stimulate behavior change around priority issues in Caribbean and other island regions with another GLISPA partners, PCI Media Impact who co-funds the role.

Prior to joining the Global Island Partnership and IUCN in January 2011, Jessica spent three years working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Pacific Centre based in Suva, Fiji Islands. Her core experience is in knowledge management, specifically in implementing systems to improve the sharing of knowledge between the Pacific and small island states globally to enhance development effectiveness.

Before her position at the UNDP, Jessica worked in a telecommunications research laboratory as a user research specialist on the development of new broadband technologies for low bandwidth access countries. Jessica is originally from the island state of Tasmania, Australia and has a strong drive towards conservation of islands, globally. An avid hiker, diver, traveler and foodie, she finds her travels to islands are a continuous adventure. 

To contact Jessica, please email her at Jessica.robbins@glispa.org.

Tom comes to IUCN from one of IUCN’s government agency members and key partners, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As the Former Deputy Director Office of International Affairs, Tom brings a wealth of experience as an international negotiator to the Union’s marine program as well as IUCN as a whole.

Tom spent 28 years with NOAA as a U.S. government spokesman dealing with a wide range of marine topics, including land based sources of marine pollution, regional seas, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) marine conservation and polar issues. He has served as chair for a number of working groups including a number of associated UNEP processes and the Arctic Council.

Tom Laughlin holds a B.A. in political science from Yale University and an M.A. in political science from Northwestern University.

To contact Tom, please email him at thomas.laughlin@iucn.org.

Working within the IUCN Global Marine and Arctic Programme, Harlan Cohen has responsibility for IUCN’s international ocean governance work. He has extensive experience with multilateral institutions, having participated in meetings at United Nations headquarters in New York, including of the General Assembly, and of other bodies on a number of subjects including biodiversity, climate change, chemicals, desertification, fisheries, governance, pollutants, science, shipping, trade, wastes, and wetlands.  He advises on IUCN’s policies and positions with respect to a wide range of international oceans and fisheries fora to ensure that IUCN’s positions are coordinated, balanced, practical, and in keeping with resolutions and recommendations as adopted at IUCN’s World Conservation Congresses.

Harlan is a former senior member of the U.S. Foreign Service, where he worked on marine, Antarctic and Arctic issues. He served in Curaçao, Frankfurt am Main, Paramaribo, and Geneva. While in Geneva, he focused on environmental and scientific issues and worked with the staff of Secretariats for six global environmental conventions, four regional environmental conventions and with a number of other environmental and scientific organizations. Harlan edited the 9th edition of the Antarctic Treaty Handbook. He has a B.A. from Columbia University, a Ph.D. in modern European history from Cambridge University and also completed a year of graduate study in science, technology and public policy at the George Washington University.

To contact Harlan, please email him at harlan.cohen@iucn.org.
 

Dorothée Herr joined IUCN’s Global Marine and Arctic Program as a Marine Program Officer in 2009. Despite being a native of land-locked Luxembourg, Dorothée is particularly interested in policy processes relating to ocean and climate change. In her capacity at IUCN Dorothée is following the current UNFCCC negotiations and working towards including marine and coastal issues more centrally into the international climate change policy debate. She is active in a wide range of marine related climate change topics and initiatives, including ocean warming and ocean acidification as well as nature-based solutions to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Dorothée is also the lead author of IUCN’s publication - The Ocean and Climate Change. Tools and Guidelines for Action.

Dorothée received her masters degree in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University and her diploma in Geography from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Fluent in four languages Dorothée comes to IUCN with extensive experience within the private sector, government agencies and NGOs having worked at the Luxembourg Ministry of the Environment, Greenpeace and the International Network for Studies in Technology, Environment, Alternatives, Development (CEPS/INSTEAD). 

To contact Dorothée, please email her at dorothee.herr@iucn.org.
 

Charlotte's experience in marine conservation spans 15 years and ranges from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate to the establishment of marine parks in East Africa. She also ran the Greenpeace oceans campaign in Washington for two years. Charlotte completed her Master's degree in Marine Policy at the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. in Marine Studies at the University of Delaware. In addition to international diplomacy and field work, Charlotte has extensive teaching experience, having taught at the University of Delaware and American University in Washington, DC, as well as spending almost two years teaching marine policy for Boston University in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Charlotte has been associated with IUCN since 1998 and is a member of three of IUCN's commissions, the Marine Turtle Specialist Group, the World Commission on Protected Areas and the Commission on Environmental Law. She co-authored three major IUCN publications on marine biodiversity, international fisheries and high seas resources. Charlotte is currently working with WCS on the establishment of marine protected areas to enhance resilience of coral reefs to climate change in Madagascar and on fisheries sustainability in Morocco. In her spare time, Charlotte is a Divemaster and a budding triathlete.
 

To contact Charlotte, please email her at cdefontaubert@gmail.com.

Suzanne comes to IUCN as a marine conservationist who has been passionate about the ocean realm since childhood. Previously, she worked on Oceana's deep-sea coral campaign and helped establish their “Dive into Ocean Conservation” program, which engaged the Scuba diving community in marine conservation. An avid diver herself, she has a Master's in marine policy from the University of Miami where her research focused on coral reef conservation. She brings her experience in marine ecosystems and conservation policy to many IUCN initiatives, including MPAs and climate change.

To contact Suzanne, please email her at slgarrett@hotmail.com.

Vivian is deeply interested in wildlife conservation, especially with creatures of the sea. Prior to joining the IUCN family, she interned at the UNEP/Convention for Migratory Species (CMS) Secretariat in Germany, where she supported the conclusion of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on global migratory sharks. She is a member of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group (SSG) and has extensive experience working with fisher communities and documenting traditional ecological knowledge.
She holds a Master of Philosophy degree in Ecology and Biodiversity and a Bachelors of Science degree in Environmental Life Science from the University of Hong Kong. Her graduate research focused on the historical shark fisheries in southern China, aimed at providing information to aid the conservation and management of sharks in the region.
Her ultimate goal in life is to work towards the conservation of animals, through the bridging of sound science into policy and implementation. Other passions include music, travelling and food. Her motto: if you believe it, you can achieve it.

To contact Vivian, please email her at Vivian.Lam@iucn.org.

Martin Sneary is a Senior Information Management Adviser, working on a shared programme of work with BirdLife International and Conservation International, splitting his time between Cambridge and Washington DC. In his capacity he is involved with the development of a number of software applications supporting the compilation, management and reporting/analysis of scientific data, notably for species and priority sites for conservation, the presentation of these data on the web site, and training.

On the fun side, as a mad keen wind surfer he's often found in rubber battling 40 knot winds and can occasionally be seen in the field with a pair of bins hanging around his neck.

To contact Martin, please email him at martin.sneary@birdlife.org.
 

Neil Cox is a Programme Officer of the Biodiversity Assessment Unit, a joint initiative of the IUCN Species Survival Commission and Conservation International's Center for Applied Biodiversity Science based in Washington, DC. At present, his primary focus is the Global Amphibian Assessment, a comprehensive review of the conservation status for each of the world’s 5,500 amphibian species.

Before joining IUCN, Neil was a Programme Officer for the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Cambridge, UK). At UNEP-WCMC, Neil worked on a wide range of global and regional biodiversity related issues including conservation assessments, species trade (CITES) and biodiversity indicators. Neil has been associated with the IUCN Red List, since 1994, in a variety of capacities including species assessment and data collection and management.

To contact Neil, please email him at n.cox@conservation.org.

Marcelo is a Programme Officer within the Biodiversity Assessment Unit, a joint initiative of the IUCN Species Survival Commission and the Science and Knowledge Division of Conservation International. The main focus of his work is to provide support to ongoing global assessment initiatives and to synthesize, manage, and analyze species conservation data. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in his native Argentina, and his Ph. D. in Ecology from the University of California, Davis. After completing his graduate studies, Marcelo was involved in conservation planning research in Chile, both in the terrestrial and marine realms. He has also conducted research in Argentina combining species distribution modeling and conservation planning to identify conservation priority areas for several groups of species. Prior to joining IUCN, Marcelo worked at the University of California in Davis reviewing and selecting environmental and socio-economic indicators in two watersheds in Northern California.

To contact Marcelo, please email m.tognelli@conservation.org.

  Nieves is a Progamme Officer of the CI/IUCN Biodiversity Assessment Unit, a joint initiative of IUCN Global Species Programme and the Science and Knowledge Programme of Conservation International. Prior to her present position she was part of IUCN´s Freshwater Biodiversity Unit in Cambridge (UK) where she worked on the EU-funded project "The integration of freshwater biodiversity in the development process throughout Africa." She begun her career at IUCN on Earth Day 2008, when she joined its Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation in Málaga (Spain) to work on regional Red Lists for the Mediterranean and North Africa, and support the organization of the World Conservation Congress held in Barcelona. She is editor of the publication "The Status and Distribution of Freshwater Biodiversity in Northern Africa" and co-author of "The Mediterranean: a biodiversity hotspot under threat." She graduated in Environmental Sciences at Universidad de Alcalá de Henares (Spain) and University of Hertfordshire (UK) and has carried out research field work in bird ecology at Universidad Nacional de León (Nicaragua), and marine turtle conservation in Costa Rica. Nieves works to expand the knowledge on the conservation status of freshwater species in South America, the key services that they provide to ecosystems, and importance to livelihoods.

To contact Nieves, please email her at n.garcia@conservation.org.

Tulia Defex has international experience on wildlife conservation and natural resources management. She received her Ph.D. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from Texas A&M and has a DVM and Masters in Agribusiness Management from Universidad de La Salle in Bogotá, Colombia.

She has applied a systems thinking approach to develop conservation strategies for large ecosystems and endangered species. She developed socio-environmental indicators for landscape dynamics and human demographics for protected areas for U.S National Parks Service. She contributed to the establishment of a rehabilitation and release clinic in the Amazon Rainforest for endemic and rare species confiscated from illegal trade and has developed and applied quantitative, population dynamics-based simulation models to analyze the viability of species in peril.

She also served as an environmental consultant for the Colombian Congress. She has actively been involved with several conservation and animal welfare projects for different species, ranging from Amazonian primates to marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Maggie Roth has joined Global Communications as a Junior Professional, Media Relations. Maggie will be with IUCN for several months covering Species/Red List/TRAFFIC, Forests/Climate Change/Ecosystems, Protected Areas/World Heritage and Gender.

Maggie has experience in a wide range of communication activities, including broadcasting, marketing and events, public relations and journalism. She has worked as a freelance journalist in the US and has been published by multiple outlets, including the Boston Globe. Most recently, Maggie held a position as an account executive at a technology public relations agency in Boston, Massachusetts.

Maggie is from the United States and has a degree in Communication Arts from Gordon College, specializing in journalism.

Maggie will be based out of IUCN’s Washington, D.C. office during her tenure at IUCN. 

Mr. Asad is a Law Fellow with IUCN's Washington, DC Office. Coordinating with executives leading IUCN's Gulf of Mexico Inter-Commission, as well as the Sargasso Sea Alliance, his work focuses on Gulf Summit planning, U.S. and international regulatory frameworks on offshore drilling and oil spills, World Heritage Convention outstanding universal value site listing procedures, and related matters. Mr. Asad's professional experience includes over 15 years working on multilateral finance and development projects, with emphasis on environmental and water management sectors, as well as assignments with environmental and social entrepreneurship NGOs. His academic background includes a J.D. in environmental law and policy (December 2011), and an MBA in Finance, from the University of Maryland. He has also completed an Executive Development Program at Harvard Business School and graduate studies at the American University School of International Service. 

Frances is a rising senior at Yale University, where she majors in Environmental Studies. After interning at the IUCN Washington D.C. Office in during the summer of 2010, Frances became the website manager for the office. Prior to her internship with the IUCN Washington, D.C., Frances has done sociological field research in New Zealand and ecological field work in Connecticut and western Texas. She plans to pursue a law degree after completing her B.A. Aside from working on environmental issues, she enjoys backpacking, baking, and astronomy.

To contact Frances, please email her at FrancesDouglas@gmail.com.