Lesley Atwood, PhD
Agricultural Ecologist
New Hampshire
Lesley Atwood Agricultural Ecologist at The Nature Conservancy. © TNC
Areas of Expertise
Agroecology, soil science, ecosystem ecology, conservation agriculture, climate change
Links
Biography
Lesley Atwood, PhD, provides scientific, technical and strategic support for The Nature Conservancy’s agricultural and food systems work.
Lesley joined TNC in 2021 following a Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) postdoctoral fellowship where she contributed to the Managing Soil Carbon Working group, and later advanced TNC’s soil health and carbon accounting initiatives with corporate partners. Lesley co-led the development of AgEvidence, an open-source platform that synthesizes scientific data to illustrate the trade-offs between agricultural practices and environmental outcomes
Her background spans agricultural ecology, soil ecology, and community sustainability. She holds a BSc from the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia, an MSc from the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies at Michigan State University, and a PhD from the Natural Resources & Earth Systems Science Program at the University of New Hampshire. For her doctorate, she examined how agricultural management, including pesticides, influences soil community and crop outcomes in Pennsylvania corn-soybean systems. Lesley also co-founded a community garden nonprofit, serving in a leadership role for five years.