Emma C. Underwood, Ph.D.

Emma Underwood is a senior conservation ecologist and research scientist with an interest the application of geospatial tools and remote sensing techniques to address biodiversity and conservation issues and inform environmental decision making. Her areas of expertise include conservation assessments of biodiversity, estimating conservation return on investment, evaluating the impact of management scenarios on ecosystem services, and mapping and predicting the distribution of invasive plant species.

During the past 15 years Emma's research has spanned multiple spatial scales from sites to ecoregions and has focused on a variety of ecosystems including tropical forests in central Africa, Mediterranean-type habitats globally, the central coast and Sierra Nevada of California, and the Mojave Desert. She has worked previously for the World Wildlife Fund, and has undertaken extensive collaborative research with The Nature Conservancy and the US Geological Survey and is a member of the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group.