Christina Eisenberg

Plenary Speaker

Cristina is the Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Director of Tribal Initiatives at Oregon State University in the College of Forestry, and is a Professor of Practice who specializes in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). As a Native American and Latinx ecologist, she is the lead principal investigator on several long-term, federally-funded projects with First Nations (Alberta, Canada) and Native American (Montana and Oregon, USA) communities that incorporate TEK and best Western science in ecocultural restoration in North America. A Smithsonian Research Associate, from 2014 until 2019 she was the Chief Scientist at Earthwatch Institute, where she oversaw a global research program focusing on ecological restoration, sustaining human communities (particularly Indigenous peoples), and increasing ecological resiliency. Cristina is the author of numerous books, journal articles, and book chapters. She serves on the Board of the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) as Director at Large and leads the SER TEK Working Group.

Nandita Basu

Plenary Speaker

Nandita Basu is a Professor and Canada Research Chair of Global Water Sustainability and Ecohydrology, and the Director of the Collaborative Water Program at the University of Waterloo. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Hydrology, Earth Leadership Fellow and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. 

Nandita Basu is internationally renowned in the fields of water sustainability and ecohydrology, where her team has laid critical groundwork to address both fundamental science and applied management questions on nutrient pollution in anthropogenic landscapes. She is an environmental engineer, who uses data science, process modeling and remote sensing to explore how climate, land use, and management impacts surface and groundwater quality across agricultural, urban and forested landscapes, and from watershed to the regional and global scales.

Her research leverages these insights to develop watershed management strategies that maximize environmental benefits without significant economic costs. She leads multiple large initiatives, including a recently funded $4.7M grant on nature-based solutions in agricultural landscapes.