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Heather Tallis
Lead Scientist
Heather Tallis is the first female lead scientist in the history of The Nature Conservancy, where she founded and directs the organization’s Human Dimensions Program (HDP), an initiative to bring human well-being considerations into conservation practice from the planning stage forward. HDP advances the use of ecological, social and economic sciences in conservation and natural resource decision-making. Heather’s current scientific inquiries focus on developing transferable analytical approaches for using information about nature’s benefits in specific policy contexts and for measuring the impacts of conservation management decisions on human well-being.
Before joining the Conservancy in 2013, Heather was lead scientist at the Natural Capital Project, where she led the development of a pioneering software application (InVEST) that reveals the ecosystem service costs and benefits of land and water use decisions. At the Natural Capital Project, Heather also helped develop a new free software tool — RIOS — which uses biophysical, ecological and social data to help policymakers and others maximize the feasibility and effectiveness of watershed investments. RIOS will be used to design 40 new water funds in Latin America and Africa.
Beyond model development, Heather has worked with governments, corporations and non-government groups to use science about nature’s benefits to inform environmental impact assessment, national accounting, land use planning, payment for ecosystem service design, and monitoring. She has guided research with diverse stakeholders across Latin America as well as in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Tanzania and the United States. On the international stage, she holds leadership and expert advisory roles with the World Bank and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
She received an M.S. in chemical oceanography from the University of California, Santa Cruz, an M.S. in marine ecology from the University of Otago in New Zealand and a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Washington. Heather is co-editor of the book, Natural Capital: The Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services, released by Oxford University Press in 2011.
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