October 3, 2018
The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is excited to welcome Danica Shaffer-Smith, the second NatureNet Science Fellow hired in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, and Gwen Iacona who will be spearheading two conservation investment decision tools for the corporate sector.
Dr. Schaffer-Smith has technical expertise in remote sensing and geospatial analysis. Her research has spanned a variety of topics, including modeling the spread of wind-driven fires, assessing habitat connectivity for endangered species, analyzing global tropical deforestation dynamics and exploring methods to quantify linkages between coupled social-ecological systems.
She will be working from The Nature Conservancy North Carolina investigating nutrient pollution risks associated with intensified agriculture, such as concentrated animal feeding operations, under increased flooding and hurricanes.
Dr. Iacona is an applied conservation scientist who uses quantitative and empirical approaches to understand how biodiversity outcomes can be improved by better decision making.
Her current work aims to improve endangered species recovery by better understanding the risks and costs associated with recovery planning.
Gwen specializes in using theoretical tools to study how the costs of conservation interventions influence the choice of actions and the resulting outcomes for conservation agencies.
She will be developing Endangered Species Act compliance tools for the Electric Power Research Institute and Monsanto.