Lisa spent over 20 years in the South and Southeast Asian tropics in several countries conducting research and holding a diversity of positions for UNESCO-MAB, several foundations, conservation NGOs and consultancies leading multi-disciplinary teams for USAID, World Bank and Asian Development Bank.  She also served on the IPCC Wildlife and Climate Change Panel and served as an advisor to the Clinton Administration prior to the Kyoto Climate Change meetings and on President Bush’s State Department’s Initiative on Illegal Logging. She served as an interdisciplinary faculty member of both Biology and School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan from 1996 to 2001 where she received UM’s highest faculty honor- The Henry Russell Award.  She has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the East-West Center’s Ecosystem & Governance Program, Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow and serves as an External Faculty Member of the Santa Fe Institute as well as several intersectoral boards including the Tropical Forest Foundation and Forest Integrity Network under Transparency International Corruption Watch Program. 

Lisa earned a BA in Anthropology from Harvard University, Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University and held a Mercer Post-doctoral Fellowship at Harvard University.