Dr. Christopher Hartley is responsible for the development of policy, tools, and metrics to facilitate private investment in conservation and the participation of farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners in emerging environmental markets. He previously worked for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Washington, DC and in California building partnerships to accelerate voluntary conservation and served with the U.S. Peace Corps as an agricultural extension agent in Senegal, West Africa. He is a Certified Crop Advisor, and a licensed Pest Control Advisor with more than 25 years of experience working in support of production agriculture and the promotion of clean air, clean water, and a safe and abundant food supply. Dr. Hartley earned a Ph.D.in Ecology, emphasis Agroecology, M.Sc. Agronomy, MSc. International Agricultural Development from the University of California at Davis.

Shonté Jenkins is the Science Information Specialist at the US Geological Survey (USGS) Science and Decisions Center (SDC) in Reston, VA. While at the center Shonté has been instrumental in producing products, which communicate the many efforts and projects by the SDC scientists within the center through print and digital media. Shonté is passionate about early education outreach and bringing more diversity to science. She pursues these efforts for the center and across the USGS as a member for the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Accessibility (DEIA) Council. Shonté has served an active role in the A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) conferences as a program and planning committee member since 2012 and more recently as Co-Chair. In addition to her many professional accomplishments, Shonté considers her greatest accomplishments being a mother, wife, and woodworker loving life in beautiful and rural Northern VA.

Dr. Marc Russell is responsible for his Center’s planning and implementation of research in EPA’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities and Sustainable and Safe Water Research Programs. He works with other EPA centers, offices, national research programs, and communities to develop innovative, scientifically sound, and sustainability focused decision support tools. These tools assure that the integrated research vital to the future of environmental protection is robust, defensible and useful. Dr. Russell specializes in landscape system ecology with foci in estuarine net ecosystem metabolism, freshwater inflow, landscape characterization, net anthropogenic nutrient budgets, system dynamics models, functional equivalency, ecosystem services, and natural capital accounting.