Marissa Ahlering is the Director of Science for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. She leads a team that broadly focuses on conservation and management of natural systems and the benefits they provide to people. Currently, her work focuses on conservation issues such as the importance of plant diversity to other ecosystem functions, implementing adaptive management, and integrating climate adaptation strategies into TNC’s biodiversity conservation work.

She received her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri studying avian ecology in the mixed grass prairies of North Dakota and Saskatchewan. After completing this work, she spent 3 years as a postdoctoral fellow working with the Smithsonian Institution, African Conservation Centre, and the University of Missouri studying savannah elephants on Maasai lands using non-invasive population genetic and hormone techniques.