RLE team

David Keith is a Professor of botany with a joint position in the Centre for Ecosystem Science at University of New South Wales, Australia and the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage. His fields of research are vegetation dynamics, population and ecosystem modelling, and fire. He is the author of an award-winning book 'Ocean shores to desert dunes: the native vegetation of New South Wales and the ACT' and more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers.

David is the Lead of the RLE Thematic Group, as well as a member of the Steering Committee and the Committee for Scientific Standards. 

Emily Nicholson is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University, Australia. Her research focusses on solving conservation problems, including measuring change in biodiversity, quantifying risks to biodiversity, and making conservation decisions. She works at scales ranging from global biodiversity policy to local-scale conservation planning. After completing her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2006, Emily worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton, Imperial College London and the University of Melbourne, before starting her current position at Deakin University in 2015.

Emily’s role in the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems has largely focused on research, including developing the RLE criteria and reviewing global methods for ecosystem risk assessment. She is the Co-Lead of the RLE Thematic Group, and a member of the Steering Committee and Committee for Scientific Standards.

Radhika Murti has a BSc. in Forestry Science from Australian National University, an MA in Land Management from University of the South Pacific, a PhD. in Community based climate change adaptation from The University of Bern and a background in forestry science, focusing on land conflicts and livelihoods within community-based forest management in the Pacific. Prior to joining IUCN, Radhika worked for the UNDP Multi-Country office based in Suva, where she was involved with poverty alleviation and livelihoods, financial literacy, gender mainstreaming, MDG reporting and disaster risk reduction programmes across the Pacific. She also worked closely with a range of Pacific Islands’ Government bodies and NGOs and taught at the University of the South Pacific in Suva.

Radhika is currently the a.i. Director of the Global Ecosystem Management Programme (GEMP) at IUCN, and before that she worked as a Senior Programme Coordinator Disaster Risk Reduction, in the Ecosystem Management Programme. Radhika is also a member of the RLE Steering Committee.

Ángela Andrade is an Anthropologist, specializing in Geographical Landscape Analysis and Land Evaluation, MSc in Landscape Ecology. She has over 25 years' professional experience in ecosystem management and has been involved with CEM for the past 18 years, working to ensure ecosystem-based approaches at the international and domestic levels to issues such as water management and conservation corridors. During her career she has had extensive experience in planning and environmental policy, as well as ecological and social studies. She has participated in several global negotiations as a representative of the IUCN and CI due to her interest and knowledge of climate change adaptation, and has been responsible for leading important initiatives associated with ecosystem-based adaptation and building resilience to face climate change. She also participated in the RLE assessment for Colombia. 

Ángela is currently the Chair of the Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) at IUCN, after serving as vice president for almost 10 years. Before that, she was Regional Vice-President for South America. Ángela is also member of the RLE Steering Committee.

Bernal Herrera-Fernández completed a Master's Degree in Tropical Forest Management and Conservation at CATIE. His PhD studies were carried out at the Faculty of Forestry Sciences of the University of Freiburg, Germany.

Bernal has more than 20 years of experience in research on tropical forests and biodiversity, and management of protected areas and biological corridors. He was president of the Commission for Ecosystem Management for Mexico and Central America and vice president of the World Commission on Protected Areas for Central America, both partners of IUCN, as well as founder and director of the Latin American Protected Areas and Biological Corridors "Kenton Miller" professorship at CATIE.

Bernal is currently one of the vice chairs of IUCN's Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) and the SC focal point for the Red List of Ecosystems Thematic Group.

Tom Brooks is an ecologist, geographer, and ornithologist by education, with a B.A. in Geography from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Tennessee. His field experience is primarily from tropical forest hotspots: in Kenya, Paraguay, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Before officially joining IUCN in January 2013, Tom was Vice President for Science and Chief Scientist of NatureServe. He's also held biodiversity science positions in The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, as well as visiting appointments at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in the University of the Philippines Los Baños and the University of Tasmania. He has authored more than 200 scientific and popular articles.

Tom is currently Head of IUCN’s Science and Knowledge Unit. Previously, he co-chaired the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas/Species Survival Commission Joint Taskforce on ‘Biodiversity and Protected Areas’ from 2009 to 2013.

 Tom is a member of the RLE Steering Committee.

Verónica Ruíz has a background in biology, specialising in ecosystem services evaluation and modelling through application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools. She is part of the Global Ecosystem Management Programme, based at the IUCN Headquarters in Switzerland, and works on application of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems assessment methodology. Prior to joining the RLE team, Verónica worked on ecosystem and disaster management from local to regional level for local NGOs and International Agencies

Jon Paul is a Senior researcher at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC), as well as founding member, director and president of Provita (Venezuelan civil association dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity since 1987).

A biology graduate from the Central University of Venezuela (1991), Jon Paul completed his masters, doctorate and certificate studies in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the School of Public and International Affairs Woodrow Wilson of Princeton University. His research is focused on the study of spatial distribution patterns of species and ecosystems threatened with extinction, the underlying causes of these patterns, and the development of guidelines for public policies related to the conservation of biodiversity. Jon Paul is the author or co-author of more than 160 publications, including scientific articles refereed in international journals such as: Nature, Science, Biodiversity and Conservation, Biological Conservation, Biotropics, Conservation Biology, Diversity and Distributions, Ecological Applications, Ecology and Society, Environmental Conservation , Oryx and Tropical Biology Magazine.

Jon Paul has been directly involved with IUCN since 1992. In 2009, he was appointed vice president of the Species Survival Commission (SSC) and thematic co-leader of the Ecosystem Red List Working Group of the IUCN Ecosystem Management Commission (CGE), being actively involved in the development of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems Categories and Criteria, as well as in several of the national and regional assessments.

Currently, Jon Paul serves as president of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. From his new position, Jon Paul continues to seek opportunities for collaboration and integration with the Red List of Ecosystems.

Irene Zager is Director of Research at Provita, Venezuela. She is an ecologist and geographer by education. She completed a Lic. in Biology at Simón Bolívar University, a MSc in Ecology at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research and a PhD in Geography at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on understanding and monitoring patterns and processes of land-use land-cover change, with particular emphasis on tropical forests.

Irene is part of the team that conducted the RLE Assessment of the terrestrial ecosystems of the Americas. She is also involved with capacity building and supporting RLE assessors, as well as website and database development.

Irene is a member of the RLE Steering Committee.

Tracey Regan is part of the Ecological Analysis & Synthesis group of The University of Melbourne. Her research interests are broad and span the fields of  applied quantitative ecology, conservation biology, ecological risk assessment, and the application of decision theory to the management of threatened and invasive species, and conservation planning more broadly. After completing her PhD at The University of Melbourne in 2004, Tracey worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research centre in La Jolla, California, and at the University of Queensland. 

Currently, Tracey´s research focuses on robust prediction and decision strategies for managing extinction risk under climate change, and the development and testing of the IUCN Red List os evosystems. She is a member of the RLE Committee for Scientific Standards.

Carlos Zambrana-Torrelio earned his MSc degree from the University of Puerto Rico (Russell E. Train Education for Nature Program Fellow) and a PhD in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology from the Sapienza University of Rome. He works as Associate Vice President for Conservation and Health for the EcoHealth Alliance, and is part of the global nonprofit’s modeling team, where he combines quantitative methods, spatial data and fieldwork to investigate the emergence of infectious diseases. He is interested in ecological niche modeling and applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology for biodiversity research and conservation.Through his work at EcoHealth Alliance, Carlos seeks to contribute to the development of high quality scientific research in his native Bolivia.

Carlos is a member of the RLE Committee for Scientific Standards.

Educated and trained both at the University of Bayreuth, in Germany, and at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC) in Venezuela, José R. Ferrer is an Associate Researcher at IVIC’s Spatial Ecology Laboratory. He works with biodiversity inventory and monitoring projects that combine field data, remotely sensed data, statistical models, and spatial prediction.

José R. is part of the team that carried out the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems assessments for terrestrial ecosystems of the Americas. He is also leading the development of the database of ecosystem assessments at the global and regional levels.

Nicholas Murray is a research scientist at James Cook University, Australia. Focusing on ecosystem risk assessment and remote sensing, he routinely works with large-scale remote sensing data to monitor long-term ecosystem dynamics, develop spatially explicit ecosystem models and progress methods for robustly estimating changes in ecosystem distributions. After positions at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science (UQ), the Remote Sensing Research Centre (UQ) and the Centre for Ecosystem Science (UNSW), he commenced as a Senior Lecturer and ARC Research Fellow at James Cook University in late 2019.

Nicholas is a member of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems Thematic Group and is actively involved in our ongoing research agenda. In particular, he focuses on developing large-scale, robust time-series analyses of ecosystems from earth observation data suitable for monitoring ecosystems at the global scale (example). His work has also focused on testing the criteria thresholds using a range of stochastic simulation models, developing computational tools for completing Red List of Ecosystems assessments (see https://remap-app.org), and utilising earth observation for assessments of the Red List of Ecosystems criteria. Nicholas is also a member of RLE's Committee for Scientific Standards.

Calvin Lee is a PhD student at Deakin University, Australia. His research focuses on using remote sensing methods within the framework of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems. The aim of this research is to expand the capacity of current risk assessments by taking advantage of the non-invasive, efficient, and low-cost nature of remotely sensed information.

Prior to initiating his PhD studies, Calvin completed an MSc at University College London and worked as a research intern at the Institute of Zoology and Natural History Museum in London, investigating the use of multibeam sonar in kelp monitoring around the British Isles.

Jessica Rowland is a PhD student at Deakin University, Australia. Her research focuses on reviewing, developing, and testing indicators for monitoring change in ecosystems. She is currently developing biodiversity indicators racking the status and trends in ecosystems based on the data collected for IUCN Red List of Ecosystems risk assessments.

Jessica completed a BSc (Zoology) in 2013 and MSc (Zoology) in 2015 at the University of Melbourne. Her master’s research aimed to increase the understanding of the thermal properties of nest-boxes compared to natural tree-hollows to improve conservation-management efforts for native wildlife under a rapidly changing climate.

Mariana C. Hernández-Montilla is the Social Networks Manager of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems. She is a biologist graduated from the University of Zulia, Venezuela, with a Master of Science in Natural Resources and Rural Development from ECOSUR, Mexico. Her main interest is to contribute to scientific knowledge towards decision-making for biodiversity conservation.

Mariana's role in the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems for the last six years has focused on the daily management and updating of social networks, as well as the maintenance of information and dissemination campaigns, and the writing of scientific notes and reports to feed the website under the guidelines of IUCN.