Penny Becker

Penny Becker, PhD joined Island Conservation in January 2020 and serves as the organization's Vice President Conservation. Penny has 20+ years of experience in conservation action, organization management, fundraising, board engagement, international and local partnership development, and conservation research. She spent 9 years with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife managing the team responsible for native species conservation across the state. Penny also spent about a decade in Africa, working in South Africa and Tanzania with Smithsonian Institution and with local nonprofits. Penny earned a BS in Biology from Willamette University and a PhD in Wildlife Management from the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Penny has wide-ranging experience and interests, working on topics and species as diverse as coastal community initiatives, adaptive leadership, at-risk species reintroductions, ecosystem recovery, and human dimensions of conservation.