Team

 

 

 

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Zack Wurtzebach, PhD

Executive Director

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As the Executive Director of SIG-NAL, Zack works with the SIG-NAL team to advance innovations in science and policy for climate-resilient urban and natural communities. An interdisciplinary social scientist by training, Zack has over a decade of experience working with federal, state, and tribal partners on innovative policy and planning initiatives that leverage “big data” for climate-smart conservation. He is currently working with colleagues at SIG and the US Forest Service to support the nation-wide expansion of Planscape, and he is leading the development of a nation-wide Biodiversity Information Network with partners at NatureServ. In his previous role as US Program Director at the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, Zack contributed to the development of the interagency Sagebrush Conservation Design and the USFS Climate Risk Viewer, worked with federal and state agencies to advance policy and planning for habitat connectivity, and supported indigenous-led conservation planning on the Blackfeet Nation. As a graduate student and researcher at the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, he published over a dozen papers on forest policy and planning and co-developed monitoring and adaptive management strategies with USFS planners and research scientists.

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 Zack earned an interdisciplinary PhD in Forest Science from Colorado State University. He also holds an MA in Political Science from Colorado State, and a BS in Resource Conservation, and a BA in History from the University of Montana. When he’s not working, he’s trying to keep up with his wife and three daughters in the mountains around Bozeman MT.