Anastasia has a 10-year background in customer success, training, and content strategy. You can find her in the Wild Me Community Forums solving problems for our users. ​In her spare time, she plays the guitar, designs video games, and restores vintage toys and electronics.

After receiving his AB/AM in Physics from Harvard University, Peter worked on decoding nonhuman communication and de-extincting lost species. As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer at CXL, Peter develops AI-based algorithms to process camera trap images and acoustic recordings in an effort to improve wildlife monitoring and conservation strategies for Sentinel. He also contributes his background in multi-modal ML to the CXL's NABIT and Open Foundry programs. Peter enjoys exploring backcountry wilderness with his four-legged trail running partner, Laska, dabbles in wildlife and pet photography, and is passionate about protecting the wild wonders of our natural world.

Carmen is the Amazon Program Coordinator for the Amazon Program at CXL, where she leads the design, planning, and execution of various projects. With 7+ years of experience managing high-impact social and environmental initiatives, Carmen specializes in integrating innovation and technology into conservation and project management. She has driven open innovation programs such as the Artisanal Mining Grand Challenge, funded by USAID, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Microsoft, and ESRI, and manages the Con X Tech Prize, funded by the Schmidt Foundation. Carmen also provides technical assistance and guidance to startups andentrepreneurs on creating sustainable business models and products. Previously, Carmen worked on formulation of projects with State funds, specifically from the Production Ministry and Innovate Peru. Carmen holds a degree in Economics from thePontifical Catholic University of Peru, with a specialization in agile methodologies from Pacific University. She is certified as a Scrum Product Owner. She is based in Lima, Peru and fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Chad Gallinat is Conservation X Labs’ Foundry Director working with both the Directed Innovation and Open Innovation teams. He currently supports the development of the Sentinel, administration of the Amazon CoLab, and the design of the Fire Grand Challenge. Since joining CXLabs in January 2018, he’s lead and/or supported the design and implementation of numerous Open Innovation activities including the Global Cooling Prize, the Ohia Challenge, the Artisanal Mining Grand Challenges (both Global- and Amazon-focused versions), and the ARSX Challenge.

Chad has a PhD in Materials Engineering and around 10 years of experience working as both a research scientist advancing important clean energy technologies as well as an energy policy advisor managing and coordinating global energy efficiency policy activities between government officials, industry partners, and other stakeholders. Before joining CXLabs he managed a range of multilateral and bilateral energy efficiency efforts designed to engage the public- and private-sectors, including the Clean Energy Ministerial’s Advanced Cooling and Global Lighting Challenges. Chad has experience in the private sector and with a national laboratory performing fundamental scientific research and analysis improving the energy efficiency of a variety of advanced functional materials. Chad is passionate about improving people’s lives by accelerating the deployment of clean energy technologies that are climate friendly and economically viable.

Cifeng pursued his Ph.D in the Mechanical Engineering Department of University of Washington. His research focused on using integrated microfluidic platform for real-time cell/droplet manipulation and study. After graduation, he joined San Jose based invitro diagnostic instrument start up for the research and developing of next generation droplet digital PCR system, utilizing his expertise in droplet microfluidics and high-performance thermal control inside microfluidic device. He received his PhD from the University of Washington in 2017 and his bachelor’s degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2011.

A Neuroscientist by training, Dante joined CXL just after obtaining his PhD from the University of Oxford. Having spent time in the jungles of Madagascar and the Negev desert he strives to combine his quantitative background with his passion for the natural environment. He believes that the latest technological developments in AI and beyond should be leveraged quickly and effectively to protect ecosystems and their inhabitants. Dante researches and develops AI models that automatically quantify animal behavior & disease, detect poachers and spot invasive species - all in real time and directly deployable to the field.

Daphne is the Director of Impact at Conservation X Labs. She leads impact strategy and tracking, including developing CXL's monitoring, evaluation, and learning system, supporting strategic planning, and seeding partnerships with the conservation, technology, development, public health, and rights communities. She brings over 13 years of experience in environmental management and international development, specializing in forest landscapes and nature-based solutions. She recently served as Head of Climate and Sustainability at Indufor North America. There, she led monitoring, evaluation, and learning efforts and supported strategy for initiatives covering conservation, restoration, sustainable supply chains, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ rights, funded by donors including the Climate and Land Use Alliance, USAID, the Climate Investment Funds, Ford Foundation, the Global Environment Facility, and Norad. She also provided environmental and social due diligence, monitoring, and technical assistance to forest and agricultural investments for public and private sector clients spanning tropical, temperate, and dryland ecosystems. Prior to her time at Indufor, she worked on climate finance and sustainable land use solutions at Forest Trends, Project Drawdown, UNIQUE Land Use, and Environmental Financial Products.

Daphne holds a Master's in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Environment, and a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science and minor in Environmental Studies from the University of Chicago. Originally from Minnesota, she lives in Washington, DC with her husband and their cat Marula. She practices as a forest therapy guide on the side, and serves as a Steering Committee member for the Women's Forest Congress.

David Day carries over five years of experience in molecular assay development and optimization including nucleic acid purification, next-gen sequencing applications, and lab management. His undergraduate research focused on elucidating protein interactions that mediate circadian rhythms in plants using model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. After graduating, he joined an immunology-focused biotech company in which he aided in the development and validation of DNA extraction methods for human sample types. In addition to nucleic acid purification, David worked to streamline the company's flagship immunoassay, reducing user handling time and improving amplification speed by over 40%. At CXL, he aids in the development of new sample applications alongside managing the lab space. He works at the intersection of molecular and engineering to help the NABIT become the best and most accessible nucleic acid amplification test on the market!

David’s expertise is in DNA sequencing technologies, DNA barcoding, marine population genetics, biological oceanography, and field sampling design. Over the past fifteen years, he has conducted phylogenetic analyses on Atlantic salmonids using mitochondrial DNA, collected catch composition data, and gathered DNA samples aboard commercial fishing vessels in the Bering Sea and Northern Pacific. His career spans regulatory biology with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit, leading marine field studies in Canadian near-shore ecosystems, and educating future scientists as a conservation biology professor in the Pacific Northwest. David has also established genetics laboratories, hired and trained staff, led certification requirements, and oversaw the development of genetic diagnostics in both regulated and unregulated biotechnology environments. His academic credentials include an MS in Biology with a focus on Population Genetics and a BS in Biology-Aquatic Sciences, complemented by a Chemistry minor, both from Grand Valley State University.

Erin has a couple of years’ experience building front-end applications and has excellent OOP, java language, Node.js and React.js framework knowledge. Also JavaScript language, HTML and CSS languages and great understanding of HTTP and web applications lifecycle specifically single page applications. Strong knowledge of unit testing concepts and understanding of behavior driven tests and of continuous integration and deployment processes. Great experience with source control system (Git), issue tracking systems like JIRA.

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At Conservation X Labs (CXL), Gabriela plays a key role in the Open Innovation team, designing and executing challenges, prizes, matchmaking processes, and hackathons. She also leads major open innovation events, including Big Thinks, Little Thinks, and Launch & Closure Program Events.

With over a decade of experience driving transformation and leveraging technology for impact, Gabriela has led innovation across multiple sectors. She worked on large-scale innovation and transformation projects at Banco BBVA and contributed to award-winning campaigns for National Geographic, including Planet or Plastic? and the first zero-plastic Nat Geo Run in the Southern Cone. Additionally, she has held leadership roles at Data Science Research Peru, Global Shapers Uruguay, and Startup UPC, where she co-led the research, design, and implementation of innovation and impact programs. In these roles, she has supported and advised corporations, startups, and international entrepreneurs.

She holds a degree in Industrial Engineering with a specialization in Process Improvement from the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences. She also earned an International Diploma in Business and Leadership from Lehigh University and holds a global certification in Innovation Management. Her engineering background, entrepreneurial mindset, and extensive experience in open innovation position her as a leader in fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and driving transformative solutions.

As the Principal Engineer for Conservation X Labs, Gareth Fotouhi brings over 15 years of experience in developing biotechnology tools. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington, where he successfully translated his research from scientific studies to a production-level genetic tool. Since joining the NABIT team in 2019, Gareth has driven the development of the Nucleic Acid Barcode Identification Tool (NABIT) from lab-scale concepts to a production-ready device that enables real-time genetic diagnostics by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Gleb is a theriologist specialising in carnivores  and ungulates. For more than 10 years he has worked in the Russian Far East. There he studied the Amur leopard, Siberian tiger, Brown and Asian black bear, Yellow-throated marten and Water deer.  In 2014-2015, he participated in the Persian leopard reintroduction program in the Caucasus.  He worked in the design and expansion of protected areas, development and testing of ecological monitoring programs. He also participated in theriological, ornithological, herpetological and ichthyological surveys.

Gleb joined CXL in June 2023, supporting snow leopard conservation work and the development of the protected areas cluster in the Teskey Ala-Too mountains of Southern Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan.

Heidi serves as the Vice President for Development at Conservation X Labs. Previously, she worked for more than two decades with environmental non-profits and five years with a biomedical research non-profit, including the American Farmland Trust, the Land Trust Alliance and at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Heidi has a passion for building partnerships of all forms and sizes and working creatively with colleagues to find solutions and raise the funds needed to end extinction.

Islam graduated from Belarus State Economic University with a Bachelor in Business Administration. He always had a love for the environment which he nurtured since childhood through participation in ecological events. In 2019 he left his bank job and joined as project assistant the Central Asian Desert Initiative led by the Michael Succow Foundation with the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Turkmenistan. At that time he joined Team Bars Turkmenistan, which brings together environmental specialists and conservationists in Turkmenistan.

Islam joined CXL in June 2023. While mostly dealing with the financial and administrative aspects of the Central Asian projects, Islam also travels with the team to all corners of the country and is actively interested in environmental issues. In his spare time, he enjoys sports, traveling and studies the legal regulation of environmental issues.

Jason has logged thousands of hours of development time as Wild Me’s original Information Architect. Using Jason’s tools, our projects have been able to categorize and manage a large amount of wildlife data, promote collaboration across borders and data sets, and identify individual animals from multiple photos taken by different researchers many years apart. Jason was the lead author and population modeler for two widely lauded papers covering whale shark population trajectories at Ningaloo Marine Park in Western Australia. Through this, he demonstrated that citizen science data can provide improved insight and population models through the greater acquisition of high-quality data. Building on 20 years of experience in wildlife software, Jason now provides organizational leadership as Executive Director.

Jon has been developing online collaborative software for over twenty years. He has a passion for open-source software and hardware, open data, citizen science, and conservation.

Kirk is a consultant with a focus on implementing and supporting data solutions within marine and terrestrial conservation programs. Prior, he was an engineer and program officer for Vulcan and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and worked on technical implementation, strategic development, and facilitation of funding for projects spanning many domains, including marine and terrestrial conservation, global health, neuroscience, and information and communication technologies.

Lasha is a curious engineer keen on solving complex problems in novel and explainable ways. Lasha believes that important, real-world challenges can be solved by engaging with them on multiple levels of abstraction. His exposure to research and applications in deep learning, machine learning, and computer vision, as well as a general background in math, statistics, physics, and software engineering, allows him to think broadly and approach complex problems methodologically. Through the experience of working with teams on novel challenges from diverse backgrounds, Lasha believes that achieving shared goals is a product of hard individual work and effective teamwork. Lasha is also an avid wildlife and environment enthusiast for life. The opportunity to contribute to shaping a better world is an inexhaustible source of his motivation.

Liam Torpy is the Fire Grand Challenge manager. He holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Chicago, where for his senior thesis, he studied the viability of a key large mammal migration corridor in the Tarangire-Manyara ecosystem of Tanzania. Before joining CXL, Liam served as Program Director for the Himalayan Climate & Science Institute, a startup nonprofit dedicated to furthering climate science and adaptation efforts and economic opportunities in the Himalayas of Nepal. Throughout his career, he has taken on a variety of roles to help further forest protection, landscape connectivity, and community-based conservation. He has worked with The Nature Conservancy, the Georgia Water Coalition, Trees Atlanta, the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, and the U.S. Forest Service on Custer-Gallatin National Forest outside of Bozeman, Montana.

Lindsey Garrison is a dynamic brand marketing and communications leader with extensive experience across conservation, entertainment, consumer technology, and education sectors. As the Director of Strategic Communications and Marketing at Conservation X Labs, she drives impactful narratives and brand strategies that support planetary health initiatives. Lindsey has excelled in leading global rebrands, producing donor-facing campaigns, and creating compelling content strategies.

Her previous roles include Senior Brand Manager at Amazon Studios, where she led multimillion-dollar campaigns and collaborated with global talent, and Creative Strategist at Millennia Creative Production, where she spearheaded business development and creative storytelling for renowned clients. With an MBA from the Tuck School of Business and a passion for crafting human-centric stories, Lindsey thrives in high-pressure environments, inspiring teams to deliver exceptional results.

Lona is the Chief Operations Officer and Innovation Counsel at Conservation X Labs, where she advises across the organization's innovation programs and oversees Impact, Communications and Marketing, Finance, Development, Human Resources, IT, and Partnerships.

Prior to joining CXL, she served as Chief Innovation Officer / Vice President of Impact and Innovation at CARE, an international NGO implementing over $900 million in programs in over 100 countries. In that role, led CARE's strategy to scale the world's most impactful solutions, and provided technical direction for digital, innovation, economic inclusion, social business, impact investing, and data, evaluation, and accountability practice areas.

Before her tenure CARE, Lona worked as a consultant to The Rockefeller Foundation on U.S. food security, and held senior leadership positions across the United States Government, including serving as Deputy Vice President at the Millennium Challenge Corporation; acting Executive Director of the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID; acting Deputy Coordinator for Development for Feed the Future at USAID; Senior Adviser to the Secretary of Agriculture; and Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service. She also served as a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State, serving overseas in Pristina, Kosovo and Kandahar, Afghanistan, worked in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and served on the U.S. Central Command’s Assessment Team. In addition to her federal government service, Lona was a research associate at the National Defense University, worked for the New York City Department of Education’s Office of the Auditor General, and served as a congressional fellow for Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. Lona holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University.

Maria began her scientific journey as a conservation biologist, focusing on conservation efforts of river dolphins in the Amazon River basin. Fourteen years ago she seized an opportunity in academia that broadened her horizons significantly and allowed her to work in the fields of molecular biology and immunology.

With extensive experience across multiple disciplines, Maria has worked in human and murine genomic pre-clinical research, as well as human immuno-oncology translational and clinical research in both academic and commercial settings.

As a molecular development scientist, her focus is on design, development and validation of molecular assays, process improvement and scalability, data mining, analysis and visualization.

Maria Fernanda is the Strategic Communications & Marketing Manager at CXL. She holds a Bachelor's in Corporate and Development Communications and a Master's in Strategic Content Management. With over a decade of experience, Maria has refined her expertise in marketing communications through roles in both national and multinational companies in Peru, as well as multilateral development organizations.

Throughout her career, she has made her mark in diverse industries, ranging from the industrial sector to media and sustainability. When she's not immersed in the world of communications, Maria Fernanda enjoys her free time surfing and trying new blends for her coffee company.

Marion Adeney is Director of Amazon and Fire Programs at Conservation X Labs. She leads strategy development for CXL’s larger Amazon Program, as well as the Fire Challenge, an open innovation program to tackle the hard problem of fire in remote areas. A conservation ecologist with a broad interdisciplinary background, she is committed to working at the intersection of environmental conservation, science, and development. Prior to joining CXL, Marion served as a program officer at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Andes-Amazon Initiative from 2016-2021, where she focused on the conservation and monitoring of protected areas and Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon.

Previously, Marion was an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy Fellow and Environmental Science Advisor at the US Agency for International Development in Washington DC and Lima, Peru. In Lima, she collaborated across sectors to better integrate science and the scientific community into programs and strategies for USAID’s Amazon conservation work in Peru, Brazil, and Amazon-wide.

Marion has a PhD in Conservation Ecology from Duke University and a Master of Arts in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology from Columbia University. Her research has focused on interactions of fire and flooding with ecosystem dynamics and human interventions in tropical forests and on Amazonian white sand ecosystems. Her BA is in American Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Matt is the Finance and Accounting Manager at Conservation X Labs. He graduated from Penn State with a bachelor of science in accounting. He then worked in public accounting in the DC metro area for 5  years focused on real estate before joining CXL.

Nitin is our Senior Fellow for alternative proteins, leading CXL's efforts to expedite a transition to a more sustainable diet.

He brings key experiences in strategic program development, communication, and international development. As WWF-India’s national lead for elephant conservation (2018-23), Nitin built a comprehensive program to understand and manage human-elephant conflict, restore wildlife habitat, reduce train-elephant collisions, and evaluate key interventions. As a science-policy fellow at USAID, Nitin advanced work on monitoring and evaluation, Indigenous people’s rights, and combating the illegal wildlife trade, co-authoring research submitted by the Kenyan delegation to argue against legalization of the ivory trade at the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species. Nitin also spearheaded a project exploring the role cultivated meat could play in biodiversity conservation.

Nitin has a Ph.D. in ecology and a certificate in science, technology, and environmental policy from Princeton University.

After receiving his AB/AM in Physics from Harvard University, Peter worked on decoding nonhuman communication and de-extincting lost species. As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer at CXL, Peter develops AI-based algorithms to process camera trap images and acoustic recordings in an effort to improve wildlife monitoring and conservation strategies for Sentinel. He also contributes his background in multi-modal ML to the CXL's NABIT and Open Foundry programs. Peter enjoys exploring backcountry wilderness with his four-legged trail running partner, Laska, dabbles in wildlife and pet photography, and is passionate about protecting the wild wonders of our natural world.

Rolando has 10+ years of experience running science-based innovation programs in Latin America in collaboration with global funds such as Newton Fund, IDB, World Bank, MIT, USAID, and Koica for the fields of Materials, Biotech, Environmental, and Biodiversity.

He has helped cutting-edge science and tech innovations and startup founders accelerate their development through incubation and acceleration, including technologies focused on building regenerative economies for the Amazon rainforest. Rolando graduated in Industrial Engineering at Lima University, has a specialization in Technology Transfer at UC Davis, and has a Master’s degree in Innovation & Change at York Business School (UK). He is fellow of Intel (USA); fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering (UK); and associate Member of the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) worldwide.

Shirin has worked in the field of wildlife conservation and protected areas management in Turkmenistan and Central Asia for more than 30 years. After working for many years for the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Turkmenistan, she has managed projects implemented by UNDP  and RSPB. As Turkmenistan manager of Michael Succow Foundation’s Central Asian Desert Initiative project, she successfully supported  the designation of the “Cold Winter Deserts of Turan” as UNESCO World Heritage site. Shirin is a founding member of Team Bars Turkmenistan and since 2020 manages the Center for Large Landscape Conservation CEPF projects in Turkmenistan. Shirin is also CBD/SBSTTA Focal Point for Turkmenistan and IUCN Focal Point for WCPA in Central Asia.

Shirin joined CXL in June 2023, supporting the Persian leopard conservation work and the development of the protected areas cluster in the Balkan region of Turkmenistan.

Tamilselvan is an architect, artificial intelligence enthusiast, and developer. He is currently building an AI-driven platform for EV vehicle lifecycle management in India. In the past, he built an AI Healthcare cloud platform to aid diagnosis and predict possible diseases from ophthalmology, radiology, and colonoscopy imaging. He was a core founding member of a cloud-based enterprise AI platform operationalized in three customer locations. He has 20 years of IT product and service delivery experience. He has worked with more than a hundred international and local customers and received many customer awards. In his free time, he helps build a Roblox game for his kid.​

Tanya Rosen joined Conservation X Labs in February 2023 as Director of Central Asian Programs. In this role she will continue to build collaborations to advance conservation of imperiled wildlife in the region by strengthening local and regional capacity to effectively protect it and addressing the threats it faces, including by harnessing the technology CXL is developing.

Between 2021-2023, Tanya was based in the Caucasus as Conservation Adviser for the Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF), where she provided technical and scientific support to protected areas in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and co-led the the development of the Regional Strategy for the Conservation of the Persian Leopard in the frame of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) Central Asia Mammals Initiative. She will continue to provide advice to CNF.

Prior to that, Tanya lived and worked in Central Asia for 12 years, leading snow leopard and Persian leopard conservation programs, among them: as co-founder of the Ilbirs Foundation in Kyrgyzstan; lead of Team Bars Turkmenistan and technical adviser for the UN Environment Programme for the "Vanishing Treasures” and IKI CAMCA project in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.

Before leap into conservation, she was an international lawyer working in US and Europe.

Tanya holds degrees (JD and LL.M) in international law from Università Statale di Milano and Harvard Law School and wildlife ecology (MSc) from Yale University and Bard College.

She is member of the  IUCN Cat Specialist Group, vice chair (North Eurasia) for the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, National Geographic Explorer, and CMS CAMI focal point for snow leopard. Most importantly she walks this life with a beloved daughter, 2 Central Asia sighthounds, a Turkmen horse and a big Central Asia family.

Tatjana is a passionate, creative product guru, with over 20 years of cross industry product management and product experience, focused on emerging technology at the intersection of design, user experience and storytelling. Managed over 10 global products from incubation to self-sustaining success in 7 different industries. Strong business development and client relationship skills. Energetic public speaker on topics like disruptive innovation, technology and design. Polyglot (8+) who thrives in multicultural environments, with a proven ability to connect and coordinate the work of global, multi-cultural teams and initiatives.

She is a firm believer in radical collaboration. Insatiable learner continuously studying different topics, now getting deeep into AI and ML, so exciting! A dedicated philanthropist with an unstoppable passion for conservation and climate tech.