Dr. Daniel Zarin is the Executive Director for Forests and Climate Change at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) where he leads a global team working on innovative solutions to help ensure that Earth’s remaining forests and peatlands can deliver climate change mitigation and adaptation benefits at the scale we need. Prior to joining WCS in 2021, Dan served as Senior Director of Programs of the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA) since its inception in 2010 where he helped to build and lead a multi-foundation program team supporting work in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Central America, and at global level on land use policy and finance, indigenous and traditional community rights and resource management, commodity-driven deforestation, infrastructure expansion and extractive industries, natural carbon capture, and the nexus between healthy diets and a healthy planet. Previously, Dan served as a senior advisor to the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. Dan was Associate Professor (2000-2005) and Professor (2005-2010) of Tropical Forestry at the University of Florida. From 1995-2000, he was Assistant Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of New Hampshire. He received a B.A. in History and a Master’s of Forest Science from Yale University (1987 & 1990), and a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Pennsylvania (1993). He has authored or co-authored over 60 publications on forest ecology, management, and policy, and the interface between deforestation and climate change.