POST Welcomes Nicole Heller

POST Welcomes Nicole Heller as Director, Conservation Science

Newly Created Role to Ensure Programs and Priorities Driven by the Best Conservation Science Practices

January 22, 2016

(PALO ALTO, CA) — The Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) has announced the appointment of Nicole Heller to the newly created role of Director, Conservation Science.

Heller brings over 20 years of experience in conservation ecology, specifically in California, to POST. She is a leader in the field of biodiversity stewardship, invasive species management, climate change adaptation and resilience science.

Most recently, Heller worked as a Climate Adaptation Scientist and Terrestrial Biodiversity and Climate Change Collaborative Coordinator at the Dwight Center for Conservation Science, Pepperwood Foundation. She previously held various roles and conducted research at Nicholas School of the Environment, as well as at Climate Central, Franklin and Marshall College, The Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

“POST is thrilled to have Nicole join our staff, and I look forward to working closely with her to guide our organizational priorities and programs, based on the best possible conservation science,” said POST President Walter Moore. “As an experienced public communicator, and author of over 50 published articles, she will also be a great asset in communicating complex environmental challenges to the POST community.”

Heller completed her Ph.D. at Stanford, in the Department of Biological Sciences, her B.A., at Princeton in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Santa Cruz, in Environmental Studies.

“I am tremendously excited and honored to join the POST team. As a biological scientist, my research is focused on studying California ecosystems, and how to best care for them for long-term persistence in the face of complex stresses like climate change, invasive species, and increasing urbanization,” said Heller.“I was ecstatic when I learned POST wanted to bring a scientist on board to help define conservation and stewardship priorities, consider the impacts of climate change and other stresses, communicate broadly about conservation science, and ensure that land conservation is benefiting as many people as possible. I am eager to continue POST’s legacy of land conservation that is a model for many around the world.”

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POST is a leading private, nonprofit land trust that protects and cares for open space, farms and parkland in and around Silicon Valley. Since its founding in 1977, POST has been responsible for saving more than 75,000 acres as permanent open space and parkland in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. www.openspacetrust.org

Press Contact

Blair Friedeman
Senior Manager, Communications
Phone: (650) 854-7696 x341
Email: bfriedeman [at] openspacetrust [dot] org
www.openspacetrust.org