Dr. Ann Edwards provides leadership and engagement to help Sea Shepherd strengthen local, national, and international conservation partnerships around the globe as we work together to eliminate illegal and unsustainable fishing and habitat destruction in sovereign, territorial waters, and on the high seas.
She has decades of experience as a research field ecologist and conservation program leader. As a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow with NOAA, Dr. Edwards designed and implemented a research program focused on mitigating the impacts of commercial fisheries on North Pacific seabirds, expanding on her Ph.D. work on albatrosses. Among many other positions, she served as Country Director for the Wildlife Conservation Society and Chief of Party for USAID, responsible for program development, staff, and in-country communications with partners, funders, the government, and media.
Having dedicated her life to conservation, Dr. Edwards has lived and worked on four continents, forging partnerships among scientists, communities, conservation organizations, governments, the private sector, funders, and intergovernmental organizations. She lived for four years in extremely remote parts of Africa among indigenous rainforest and savannah communities, and later was awarded the Mongolian government’s highest environmental leadership award, in part for her focus on empowering Mongolian women to be environmental leaders.
Ann has a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Washington, an MSc in tropical wildlife conservation from the University of Florida, and a BA in biology from Brown University. She lives on Vashon Island in Washington, U.S.A.
