Ted Lawrence Email & Phone Number

I work on the frontlines of conservation in rural multifunctional landscapes, and particularly in the tropics where levels of biodiversity are exceptional and Indigenous people traditionally manage the natural resources, but also where the status of both are threatened due to the broader political economy, climate and land-use change that drive changes to landscape heterogeneity and impact biodiversity and traditional livelihoods.I'm a landscape ecologist and conservation scientist with expertise in the science and management of the spatial organization and transformation of landscape patterns and processes, the anthropogenic drivers of landscape and regional change, and landscape planning and spatial design to implement conservation strategies. I'm trained across the social and natural sciences to spatially examine Working Landscapes as dynamic and complex social-ecological systems comprising heterogeneous biophysical patterns and processes, political-economic organization, and socio-cultural institutions. I'm adept at integrative leadership of transdisciplinary field and lab teams in applying spatial systems thinking, methods, and design including: research and sampling design; spatial ethnography, social-ecological surveys, and data collection (in situ and remotely sensed); modeling and analysis (GIS, machine learning, spatial-temporal statistics); and spatial conservation design and implementation. Also, I'm adept at combining Indigenous community-engaged and participatory landscape conservation planning and spatial design with broader-scale spatial modeling and analysis of regional change.I have nearly 20 years of experience as a conservation professional, including: 1) roughly a decade of leading quantitative modeling and analyses for broad-scale conservation planning and policy development; and 2) nearly a decade of practical experience and leadership in local stakeholder, Indigenous community-engaged, and participatory landscape surveys and assessments, systematic planning and spatial design, and conservation action in rural and remote landscapes of the tropics. Simultaneously train and mentor future conservation planning and design professionals in field and lab settings.I have successfully carried out conservation planning activities and projects with Indigenous peoples in multiple global biodiversity hotspots. Specifically, I have worked closely together with the Ngäbe in Panamá; Maya in Yucatán, México; and Quechua in the Ecuadorian Andes. Currently, I am developing conservation activities with several Indigenous groups in Kenya.