The IFB Programme is pleased to introduce six Knowledge Exchange Fellows who have been appointed this year. They bring significant experience in biodiversity and environmental analytics, and applying these within financial decision-making. They will contribute greatly to the sharing of knowledge between academia and industry.
Jimena works at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI). She leads the Global Finance & Economy Group's workstream on Greening Finance for Nature and the scenarios work as part of the Oxford Martin School Systemic Resilience Initiative. Jimena has 19 years of experience spanning engineering, climate change, nature-based solutions, modelling, economics, and finance across academia, industry, and nonprofits in Latin America, Europe, and the United States.
Jimena will be working with Flagship 2, Greening Finance for Nature, of the IFB programme to extend the reach of the Flagship beyond its main financial institution stakeholders (banks, regulators, institutional investors and asset managers) to the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). Jimena aims to provide evidence on the financial materiality of nature-related risks and scenario analysis to TNFD’s stakeholders, including corporates, market service providers, data providers, government and civil society.
Laura works at the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of York. She is a Research Associate and YESI Knowledge Exchange Fellow working with partners in North Yorkshire and Humber on embedding environmental quality into Nature-Based Interventions for Health. Laura has five years postdoctoral research experience working on how ecosystems function, how we interact with nature and the benefits we receive. Much of her work has involved communicating with and learning from non-academic stakeholders to improve how evidence is used in policy development and practice.
Laura will be working primarily with Flgship 1 and Theme 1, Data, tools and metrics, of the IFB programme to embed biodiversity within financial decision making by supporting the application of indicators and metrics that verify the impact of nature positive investments in the renewable energy sector (solar and onshore wind). Laura also aims to expand knowledge exchange networks and explore the transferability of indicators and metrics for solar investment in Europe to India.
Dougal is a Research Fellow in Nature Finance and Biodiversity at the Centre for Enterprise, Environment and Development Research, Middlesex University. He is co-facilitating an innovation accelerator for 16 nature positive companies, alongside his role as director of with the Green Business Team based in Sussex. He previously worked as Innovation Advisor for Clean Growth UK at the University of Brighton.
Dougal will be working with Themes 1 and 2, Data, tools and metrics + Innovation, building on work by the University of Brighton and Middlesex University to combine a carbon calculator platform with the Nature Positive Business Mapper Tool (NPBMT). This fellowship will culminate in a biodiversity calculator for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to describe and upload generic business information to discover indicators, ideas and action points that link their commercial activity to the TNFD roadmap for nature positive action.
Eun is a Research Associate at the School of Geography, University of Nottingham. She leads a range of transdisciplinary research projects focused on biodiversity conservation and market integration, working with diverse partners including corporations, start-ups, government bodies, and international conservation organisations. With over a decade of industry experience in the tech sector and business development through cross-sector partnerships, Eun is driven to bridge academic research and practical application.
Eun contributes to the IFB programme under Theme 1, Data, Tools, and Metrics, aiming to align market needs with advances in tools and infrastructure. She is also part of the Metrics and Measurement Working Group within the Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA), helping shape market standards and promote best practices in high-integrity biodiversity credits for newly entering market participants.
Lydia is a Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, working on nature-related financial risks and impacts. Her current research explores financial interactions with land use change in ecosystem tipping points, in collaboration with earth system scientists at the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute.
Lydia will be working with Flagship 2, Greening Finance for Nature, and build on her recent research mapping financial flows that are negatively impacting critical ecosystems, to develop future visions of how nature finance in the UK could evolve towards 2030 and beyond. The KE work Lydia plans to deliver aims to provide evidence to HM Treasury, DEFRA, and the Bank of England – focusing on the latter’s updated mandate to support a nature-positive economy.
Alexa is an ecologist and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Biodiversity Futures Lab and the Centre for UK Nature, Natural History Museum (NHM). She has eight years postdoctoral research experience working on biodiversity conservation and on the environmental impacts of agriculture. Alexa’s work focuses on assessing the impact of conservation actions and also on minimising trade-offs between agricultural production outcomes (crop yield, farm profit) and environmental outcomes (biodiversity, pollination and carbon stocks / greenhouse gas emissions).
Alexa will be working on the biodiversity impacts of natural rubber cultivation under Flagship 1, Financing Green Sector Transitions, building on recent work IFB work led by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and University of York. She will integrate new rubber plantation maps with NHM’s PREDICTS database to estimate a Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) for rubber plantations. Knowledge exchange will then take place with stakeholders including Bloomberg, TNFD and rubber industry focused organisations.