ASSOCIATES
Rhona Barr
Rhona Barr is an economist that specializes in the development and evaluation of innovative programs that focus on linking livelihood improvement with incentives for environmental stewardship. She has worked with sustainable tourism programs for James Cook University in Australia and the Zoological Society of London in Mozambique. Rhona has consulted with United Nations Development Program and the World Bank on economic valuation of ecosystems, climate change vulnerability and adaptation investments, and resource allocation frameworks. She is currently finishing her PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she has been developing economic incentives that promote sustainable resource use and aid in poverty alleviation. Her work also includes the role of social capital and self-financing models in marine environmental conservation. She holds an MSc in Environmental Economics & Policy from Imperial College London and a BSc in Zoology from the University of Edinburgh.
Eileen Burns
Eileen Burns is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, with professional experience in life insurance, finance, and investment modeling. She also holds a MSc in Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management at the University of Washington. Eileen works with ACS in developing innovative solutions for market-based governance, leveraging cutting edge financial instrument designs for use in conservation.
Peter Cook
Peter Cook brings field experience in international development projects in Ecuador to ACS. Peter interests are exploring ways in which local products, goods, and services can be leveraged to incentivize environmental stewardship. He has worked on projects with cocoa, serving as project manager with a local cocoa farmers’ cooperative. Peter has worked as an export consultant to US cocoa buyers. He has consulted with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Biotrade Initiative, in an impact monitoring and evaluation project, Peter has also worked with the German Society for International Cooperation, developing marketing plans for agricultural products from indigenous groups in Ecuador. Peter is based in Ecuador, working on a ACS's pilot project for the environmental mortgages concept. Peter plans to pursue graduate study in international development. He holds a BA in Philosophy and International Relations from Cornell University.
Stefan Gelcich
Stefan Gelcich is a marine biologist and studies human dimensions of marine fisheries management and environmental conservation. He is a lead investigator of a program focused on the economic valuation of ecosystem services and its implications for decision making in the central coast of Chile, an effort funded by FONDECYT (Fondo Nacional de Desarollo Cientifico y Technólogico). He is also studies marine governance approaches to implement and effectively manage marine protected areas. Stefan is co-investigator in the Center for Advanced Studies in Ecology and Biodiversity at Pontificia Universidad Católica where his work focuses on links between fisheries management, biodiversity conservation, and environmental attitudes of stakeholders. Stefan is also a regional councilor for Global Green Grants, an environmental NGO which awards small grants to grassroots movements engaging in environmental issues. He received his BSc from the Universidad Catolica del Norte, his MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and his PhD from University of Wales, Bangor.
Tom Gorton
Tom Gorton is a strategic designer focused on leveraging design-based thinking towards identifying and developing innovative and effective solutions to environmental, social and commercial challenges. Tom's business and design leadership capabilities, combined with his creative intuition and skills, enable him to be an effective and energizing contributor within any problem-solving situation. Over the past seventeen years, in addition to his strategy-focused work, Tom has also designed a wide range of successful brand identities, products, interactive experiences and print-based packaging, marketing collateral and advertising campaigns.
James Mandel
James Mandel is currently working as a consultant with McKinsey and Company, where he focuses on social sector and education work. Jamie holds a PhD from Cornell University, where he studied ecology and evolutionary biology. At Cornell, Jamie completed a two-year National Science Foundation training program in nonlinear dynamics. He holds a BSc in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, where he studied the ecology of tropical trees.
Barbara Müller
Barbara Ursula Müller holds a Master in social and economic sciences from the University of Vienna, Austria, specializing on corporate finance. She has worked as a financial analyst in the mergers and acquisitions department at Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt, Germany. Following her work in finance, Barbara earned a Master of Science in protected area management from the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. She works as a freelance consultant on conservation financing. She is a member of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas and the Conservation Finance Alliance Innovative Finance Mechanisms working group. Barbara is based in the south of Austria.
Najem Raheem
Nejem brings ten years of experience as an environmental economist to ACS. In addition to teaching and training, his expertise is in economic analysis of natural resource and environmental issues, with a focus on ecosystem services valuation and traditional or indigenous economies. Currently an assistant professor of economics at Emerson College in Boston, MA, USA, Najem also has worked as a Senior Lecturer in economics at Kinship Conservation Fellows and as Senior Economist at the Center for Sustainable Economy. His recent projects include ecosystem service valuation projects in California, USA and Labrador, Canada. Najem has written reports for clients addressing marine and terrestrial ecosystem conservation and novel approaches to conservation using economic approaches. Nejem graduated with a B.A. in theater directing from Bennington College, and holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of New Mexico, where he received a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Award and a Title VI FLAS Award, in addition to grants from the Christensen Fund and the Center for Regional Studies. He recently completed MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab training course on randomized evaluation of social programs in Cambridge, MA.
Michael Sorice
Michael Sorice is a Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech University. His research focuses on the social-psychological aspects of conservation to improve planning and decision-making. He specializes in understanding the drivers of conservation-related behavior of private landowners. His most recent work has examined landowner engagement in management practices that conserve soil, water, and biodiversity.
Chris Wilcox
Chris Wilcox is a senior scientist in the Pelagic Fisheries and Ecosystems Group at CSIRO, Australia's National Research Institution. His research team contributes to the spatial management of marine resources, which is becoming increasingly important as marine protected areas and space-time closures are incorporated into traditional fisheries management frameworks. Chris also develops ecologically-based policy tools to resolve inherent conflicts between human resource use and biodiversity conservation. This involves seeking solutions that allow resource extraction that is both economically efficient and ecologically sustainable. His research takes an integrated approach that combines modeling, empirical investigations, and analysis of historical data.