The Forests Dialogue : Special : Previous Staff

Previous Staff

Marisa Camargo

Forests and Climate Change Specialist at Indufor, Finland

“Ever since I graduated from FES I have been working with forests and climate issues e.g. REDD+, which require comprehensive multi-stakeholder dialogues. The experience I gathered in TFD has been extremely important for my current job. As a consequence, I will hopefully be able to contribute to more inclusive international policies."

Qian Fang

environmental consulting

“After working in Shanghai, China for a year, I moved back to the States. I'm working in an environmental consulting firm in New Jersey.

Organizing TFD's first China dialogue gave me a valuable opportunity to understand China's forest development/policy, to meet people from various forest-related sectors and to use my environmental knowledge, connection with China and communication skills to achieve something very meaningful."

Benjamin Fryer

Benjamin Fryer is a student in the Master of Forestry program at Yale. He is interested in agroforestry in the tropics and in the emerging markets for payments for environmental services. Prior to coming to Yale he was a volunteer in the Peace Corps’ rural development program in Nicaragua, where he helped form two village credit unions and supported a youth group in developing a small animal feed business. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley.

James Leslie

UNDP Peru

"After completing my degree at FES, I accepted a position with UNDP in Peru. I am currently the environment and energy focal point and manage a rapidly expanding project portfolio related to climate change, biodiversity conservation and access to clean energy. Through my experience with TFD, I witnessed the value of creating a space for senior stakeholder representatives to establish a shared agenda around emerging forest issues. I saw the dialogues' value as contributing to political will and strategic visioning that motivate concerted action on the ground."

Brian Milakovsky

Fulbright Fellow, Ukraine

"From September 2009-June 2010 I am doing a Fulbright project on the protection of biodiversity in managed forests of Ukraine. I work at forest management units around the country helping to delineate critical habitat areas. After this I hope to pursue similar work in the US, Canada and Eastern Europe.

Working at The Forests Dialogue was a great chance to work with Russian NGOs and forest companies, explore issues of social sustainability in forestry, and generally develop my skills at

organizing international work. Through my experience at the Dialogue in Syktyvkar, Russia, I got a much better understanding of socioeconomic conditions in rural Russia. This has certainly helped me in my subsequent work in Eastern Europe."

Hannah Murray

Program Manager, Katoomba Group/Forest Trends

"My time at TFD gave me the opportunity to meet and learn from leaders in the forestry and forest policy sectors. It was a great way to learn about the latest developments in the field and emerge with a global perspective on these issues. I am confident that my work at TFD was instrumental in my gaining a job working on international forest policy in Washington, DC."

Geofrey Mwanjela

Geofrey obtained his B.S. in Aquatic Ecology and Management from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Prior to coming to Yale, Geofrey was involved in a number of consultancies on resource use around protected areas in Tanzania, preparing research instruments, administering surveys, analyzing data, and writing reports. At Yale his main focus is on the influence of management plans and policies on resource use on the conservation of biodiversity. Following graduation in 2011, he intends to go back to Africa and work with conservation NGOs in the area of policy and on community-based conservation.

Ana Karla Perea

Ana Karla Perea is a candidate for the Master of Environmental Management degree at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She is interested in topics such as international forest policy and governance. The last four years she worked at the National Forest Commission of Mexico managing research and development projects financed by the National Forest Commission and the National Council for Science and Technology.

Sarah Price

Head of Projects & Development Unit, PEFC International

“I had the opportunity to work with TFD while pursuing a Masters in Forest Science at Yale University. During that period I worked extensively on TFD’s illegal logging and poverty reduction initiatives. The knowledge gained, exposure current to international forest policy developments, and the opportunity to interact with a wide range of international experts added significant value and relevance to my studies.”

Stella Zucchetti Schons

Recent graduate of Yale's F&ES program and School of Management

"Prior to coming to Yale, I constantly heard the term "multistakeholder involvement" come up in the project I worked at. At TFD I had the opportunity of finding out exactly what that term means and actually participating in such type of process, an experience I could not have gotten in any of the classes taught at FES. And that is one of the points of relevance of TFD being hosted by FES, besides the role of speakers and contact brought to the school through the TFD channel. I am not only an admirer of what TFD does, but also a believer of its work."