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Science & Policy Leader
Science & Policy Leader
Executive leading people and organizations to use policy and evidence to benefit nature, climate, and people. Scientist advocate with broad experience across governmental and non-governmental sectors, with businesses and private landowners, and academia and decisionmakers to shape and achieve shared goals. Communicator who can inspire and inform decisionmakers, the public, funders, staff, scientists, the press, and others through a variety of media. Business-minded to ensure sustainability essential to advancing the mission.
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Over 20 years of experience in science, public policy, and service, with an emphasis on regional, national, and international conservation and climate science and policy.
Currently founding Next Interior, a place to imagine and advocate for the next iteration of the US Department of the Interior and how it benefits current and future generations of Americans, nature, and climate.
Former acting Deputy Assistant Secretary - Policy and Environmental Management in 2004 and during the first month of the current administration until my resignation.
Senior executive leading the Office of Policy Analysis for the US Department of the Interior to address natural and cultural resource management policy; science and other information about those resources; and fulfilling our Trust responsibilities to Native Americans and others.
Also the Statistical Official for the Department, helping ensure Interior builds and uses evidence that improves how it serves the Nation.
Former nonprofit executive as the Director of the Center for Conservation Innovation at Defenders of Wildlife, and a policy analyst before that.
Started from a foundation as a field biologist in the Mid-Atlantic and then a decade as a field biologist in the Western U.S. Always excited to go out finding plants and critters or talk about them!
Experience leading and managing teams through growth and organizational change (and a pandemic); fundraising through grants, foundations, and philanthropies; and growing audiences through a variety of media. I've led and directed collaborative research, technology development, and policy programs with partners across the governmental and non-governmental sectors to advance conservation outcomes. Extensive experience communicating science and policy with the press, the public, scientists, lawyers, and policymakers to set and advance the policy and conservation agenda. Find more experience here.
When not doing policy, science, communications, and related matters, I'm probably out cycling, packrafting, trekking, adventure racing, or some combination of those or other activities along with being a naturalist. Usually out there with my wife and daughter, sometimes the dogs too!
Bringing eight years of resource management experience in the field, from tundra to the tropics; five years teaching during my PhD; nine years on national policy, including as a Federal senior executive, in Washington, DC.
Dozens of publications in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nature Climate Change, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, and numerous preprints and reports.
Experience both creating and directing the development of dozens of apps and interactive analyses to make it easier to access and understand data to inform decision-making.
Extensive experience talking with reporters from radio, print, and web media to provide explanations and background on important policy topics related to conservation and resource management.
A spicebush swallowtail (Pipilo troilus), a common species in Maryland. CC-BY-SA Jacob Malcom 2019, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/22774975
Grants, foundations, major donors, members, and ideas for innovations in funding conservation.
From testifying to Congress to speaking at international conferences to briefing decision makers.
Awards and honors, teaching experience, technical skills, and professional service.
Landscapes like this, part of Chiricahua National Monument in Southeast Arizona, must be conserved for us to protect biodiversity, build resilience to global change, and provide benefits to people. CC-BY Jacob Malcom, 2018
Featured video
Featured video
Testifying to Congress on the biodiversity crisis
Testifying to Congress on the biodiversity crisis
In May 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released its of the forthcoming Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service. I testified to the House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife about the report and tied it explicitly to the U.S. Endangered Species Act, our nation’s best line of defense against extinction and the threats identified in the IPBES report.
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