Dr. Colleen Scanlan Lyons is a cultural anthropologist who serves as the Project Director for the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force, as a Research Associate with the Environment and Society Program of the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado (CU), and as an Instructor for CU’s Presidents Leadership Class. She holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology and Master Degrees in Anthropology from the University of Colorado and a Masters Degree in International Development from the School for International Training. Dr. Scanlan Lyons has expertise in project development and management pertaining to the social aspects of climate resilience, forest conservation, network building, and community-level participation, mobilization, and local level leadership and capacity building. She collaborates with social-environmental leaders around the world and often serves as a liaison among the academic, civil society, governmental, and private sectors. She has been working in Brazil since 1993, at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA) as well as in the Atlantic Forest of Southern Bahia where she completed her dissertation research. She has brought students to Brazil since 2012.