Valerie Pietsch McNulty (Val) is Conservation Scientist for The Nature Conservancy’s Caribbean Division. She makes a speciality of geospatial evaluation and marine ecosystem modeling, which she makes use of to develop conservation decision-support instruments and to help efficient options for ocean safety, habitat restoration and local weather resilience.
Val has developed a set of apps in Google Earth Engine and ArcGIS Online to ship scientific knowledge to stakeholders in an interactive and user-friendly format, for each The Nature Conservancy’s Caribbean Division and its Hawai’i-Palmyra Program. Most not too long ago, she developed a complete suite of monitoring and analysis knowledge, with an accompanying on-line dashboard, to enhance the processes by way of which the group tracks its conservation influence.
Her present work contains utilizing remote-sensing applied sciences to judge and make the most of the blue carbon storage potential of mangroves; creating fashions to prioritize coral reef restoration and insurance coverage efforts; finishing marine spatial planning for improved ocean safety and administration; and creating fashions to investigate the prices and advantages of reef and mangrove restoration initiatives.
Val has been with The Nature Conservancy since 2017. Prior to becoming a member of the Caribbean Division, she labored in migratory species conservation within the Gulf of Mexico and concrete warmth island mitigation in New York City. She has beforehand labored on the NASA-Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society.
Val earned an M.A. in local weather and society from Columbia University and a B.S. in environmental engineering with a minor within the science of earth methods from Cornell University. She can also be a licensed scientific diver by way of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences.