About Me

Bringing a scientific mind and entrepreneurial spirit to the business of regeneration.

Biography

I am an Earth systems scientist with a 15-year track record in leading research, building tech, and developing nature-based solutions to help address the twin crises of biodiversity extinction and climate change in our warmer, drier, and more uncertain world. I’m deeply passionate about how we can harness the current evolutions in science, technology, finance, and consciousness to catalyze the next generation of businesses that grow with nature.

As a researcher-turned-entrepreneur, I have worked at the intersection of ecosystem science, naturetech, and business in several continents. The common thread in my work is a passion for translating science into action, a love for “walking the edges” between sectors and disciplines, and an interest in entrepreneurship and innovation for transforming our relationship with inner and outer nature.

In my most recent position as Co-Founder and Chief Science and Innovation Officer of the Amazon Investor Coalition, I developed a global platform to help disrupt the deforestation economy in the Amazon by boosting finance flows for forest-friendly startups. I co-piloted a deal flow and research program to increase investor awareness of, appetite for, and access to investment-ready Amazonian startups with solutions for protecting and regenerating biodiversity.

My PhD, funded by NASA, was at the vanguard of ecosystem remote sensing and natural capital accounting (MRV). I pioneered methods for using multi-sensor data streams (LiDAR, satellites, and ecoacoustics) to measure carbon and biodiversity dynamics in tropical forests. As part of this effort, I developed the first comprehensive estimates of forest carbon emissions following fire and logging in the Amazon. I also built new scientific innovations for harvesting soundscapes to measure biodiversity loss and uplift across space and time. Following my PhD, I continued pushing the edge of animal acoustic monitoring technology as a consultant for startups, and as Director of Science Innovation and Impact with Rainforest Connection.

Earlier in my career, I received my Master of Forestry from Yale University, where I worked on mobilizing large-scale forest restoration in Brazil’s Atlantic forest. I later continued this focus as a visiting scholar with the University of São Paulo, where I developed a system for triaging forest restoration investments by using dense records of satellite data to model success probabilities and pinpoint landscapes with “extinction debts”— critical opportunities to avert biodiversity loss through restoration. I have also held positions at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the American Forest Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. 

I speak Spanish, Portuguese, R and Python, and have led several multi-month field expeditions across different tropical forest biomes.

I draw my inspiration from the fact that it’s still not too late to bridge the multi-trillion-dollar funding gap needed to halt biodiversity loss, reach net zero, and advance social flourishing. When I’m not thinking about what futurists call “adjacent possibilities,” I may be hiking, listening to jazz with a heavy bass line, or exploring my edges on my yoga mat.

Early story: Inspiration

 

I was raised by diverse lands, cultures, and life forms. Each played a key role in my early story.

I developed instincts for purposeful risk-taking from my Israeli dad, who stoked an early interest in business, and for magical thinking from my Puerto Rican grandmother, who illuminated my path as scientist and poet. My mom and her sisters taught me how to appreciate and probe the mysteries of nature and to bailar salsa. 

Growing up in the Virginia woodlands, I had free rein to our mountaintop covered in biology, and spent most free hours roaming the forest as an intrepid scientist-in-the-making. My siblings were all non-human: hundreds of small parrots, dozens of horses, and other farm critters.

One day I woke up and all the forest around me was gone. Forest converted to short-term economic thinking. The rampant deforestation of Loudoun County, Virginia — which became the nation’s fastest growing county and famous cautionary tale — started me on my life path towards fostering sustainable development and smarter business growth.

 
indras net.png

“I am because we are.” Ubuntu

Selected Science Talks

 

Here, we developed a more complete understanding of carbon emissions and recovery following fire and logging in the Amazon by integrating multi-sensor remote sensing data from satellites and LiDAR. Filmed as a video abstract for our corresponding publication.

 

We can’t see animals from space, so Rainforest Connection’s AI algorithms and acoustic sensors enable us to monitor animal populations and illegal activity in real-time to benchmark change over time. Filmed for Interspecies Conversations, cohosted by MIT Bits & Atoms, Google, and the Jeremy Coller Foundation.

 

By combining insights from space, aircraft, and acoustics, we are developing a more complete picture of animal ecosystems in human-altered forests. Filmed for the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

 

Media Mentions

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Awards & Achievements

2019–2019

University of Maryland Wylie Dissertation Fellowship  

2016–2019

NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship

2016-2016

NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Award 

2016

Ford Foundation Fellowship (awarded but declined)

2014-2016

University of Maryland Dean’s Fellowship  

2014-2014

NASA-UMD Joint Global Carbon Cycle Center Fellowship 

2012-2013

Yale Fox International Research Fellowship   

2012-2012

Brazilian Studies Association Brazilian Initiation Scholarship  

2011-2011

Yale University Tropical Resource Institute Fellowship  

2011-2011

Yale University Carpenter-Sperry Research Grant  

2011-2011

Yale University Latin American and Iberian Studies Grant        

2006-2008

George Washington University Presidential Merit Scholarship