About Joanna's Work

Joanna Grand is currently working as the Director of Spatial Conservation Science in the Science Division of the National Audubon Society. In this role, she leads local to hemispheric-scale spatial prioritization efforts that help guide the organization’s conservation actions. Previously, she worked in the Landscape Ecology lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she completed her Ph.D. in May 2004. As a Senior Research Fellow at UMass, she worked with a team of ecological modelers on a USFWS-funded project to predict regional landscape change and assess the impacts of that change on the ecological integrity and habitat capability of the Northeastern US. Her postdoctoral work at the University of Maryland College Park focused on assessing the impact of incomplete and biased data on systematic reserve selection algorithms using the threatened Proteaceae family of flowering plants in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa as a case study. Her doctoral research focused on local-level conservation planning; specifically, prioritizing the threatened pitch pine-scrub oak communities of southeastern Massachusetts for biodiversity conservation. Prior to her doctoral work, Joanna earned a master's degree in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Conservation Biology Science from the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. As a master's student, she pursued two research projects related to green and loggerhead sea turtle conservation in Cozumel, Mexico. She used economic analyses to estimate the amount of unrealized tourist revenue that the Mexican government could potentially obtain to fund their marine turtle conservation initiative, and she developed a demographic model to quantify the level of in situ egg mortality at which nest protection is necessary to prevent extinction. Joanna has also worked with a variety of other conservation organizations and government agencies including Columbia University's Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, the American Museum of Natural History, the World Resources Institute, the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.