Karen Poiani, Ph.D.
Director of Science
Brief Biography
Karen received her M.S. in botany (1987) and Ph.D. in ecology (1990) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. Following graduate school, she completed a 4-year post doctorate at Cornell University working on spatial modeling, wetlands ecology, and climate change. Karen entered the world of applied conservation when she joined The Nature Conservancy in 1995 as National Landscape Ecologist, consulting with many of the Conservancy’s field programs. In 2000, she co-authored the paper “Biodiversity conservation at multiple scales: Functional sites, landscapes, and networks” that helped the Conservancy shift to a broader landscape paradigm, and was part of a team that updated the Conservancy’s guiding document Conservation by Design. Karen moved to Hawai‘i in 2001 and spent a year helping the Conservancy’s Asia Pacific Program begin broad scale conservation planning. From 2002-2007, Karen was the Director of Conservation Programs for the Hawai‘i Chapter where she provided leadership for conservation priorities and strategies across the state. Karen re-joined Central Science in 2007 to become the Director of Conservation Learning. Karen served as curriculum chair of the Conservancy’s 1,100-participant Conservation Learning Exchange (ConEx), held in October 2008 in Vancouver, Canada. Most recently, Karen organized the Conservancy’s first ever Climate Adaptation Clinic, where 20 conservation projects from around the globe came together to determine how to adjust their conservation strategies to climate change. She currently is Director of Science and leads the Conservancy’s Central Science team. Karen enjoys bike riding, cooking, and yoga. She lives with her partner on the Upper West Side in New York City.
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