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Jennifer Molnar
Jennifer Molnar
Director, Sustainability Science
Contact Information
E-mail: jmolnar@tnc.org
Brief Biography
Jennifer joined The Nature Conservancy in 2004 as part of an international team of scientists that collected, tracked, and analyzed global data to inform conservation strategies, policies, and priorities. She is a co-author and editor of The Atlas of Global Conservation (University of California Press, April 2010). Partnering with some 70 institutions around the world, she and her Conservancy co-authors compiled and developed an unprecedented number of global maps to describe the state of our natural world. Jen is working with partners to make all of the data behind the global maps publicly available online. She led global analyses of habitat condition and threats with a focus on marine and freshwater systems, including the first global assessment of the distribution, pathways, and ecological impacts of marine invasive species.
In 2010, she began leading the Analysis Team within the Conservancy’s Central Science Program. This team is identifying, testing, and developing new approaches that improve how conservation benefits both nature and people, with projects related to ecosystem services, human well-being, return on conservation investments, agriculture, and the global atlas. She is the Conservancy's science lead for the Conservancy-Dow Chemical Company collaboration to incorporate nature and the value it provides to people into the company's business decision-making.
Jennifer received a master’s degree from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where she studied the impacts of land use change on estuarine ecosystems. She has an S.B. in environmental engineering from Harvard and has previous experience in hydrology and environmental remediation.
Jennifer Molnar
Director, Sustainability Science
The Atlas of Global Conservation
Hoekstra, J. M., J. L. Molnar, M. Jennings, C. Revenga, M. D. Spalding, T. M. Boucher, J. C. Robertson, T. J. Heibel, with K. Ellison. 2010. The Atlas of Global Conservation: Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities to Make a Difference. Ed. J. L. Molnar. Berkeley: University of California Press
Invasive Marine Species
Molnar, J.L., R. Gamboa, C. Revenga, M. Spalding. 2008. Assessing the global threat of invasive species to marine biodiversity. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6(9): 485–492
Marine Ecoregions of the World
Spalding M.D., H.E. Fox, G.R. Allen, N. Davidson, Z.A. Ferdana, M. Finlayson, B.S. Halpern, M.A. Jorge, A. Lombana, S.A. Lourie, K.D. Martin, E. McManus, J.L. Molnar, C.A. Recchia, J. Robertson. 2007. Marine ecoregions of the world: a bioregionalization of coast and shelf areas. BioScience 57(7): 573-583.
The Sum is Greater Than the Parts
Molnar J., M. Marvier, and P. Kareiva. 2004. The sum is greater than the parts. Conservation Biology 18(6): 1670-1671.
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