helen fox, phd
Senior director, changing planet grants
national geographic society
Dr. Helen E. Fox is currently leading field engagement for AllenCoralAtlas.org at the National Geographic Society. She has > 20 years' experience working at the boundary of science and conservation, including work on links between marine protected area (MPA) management and governance, ecological impacts, sustainable fishing, and human well-being, with expertise in Indonesia and the Coral Triangle. Other areas of expertise include monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL), strategic planning, communication, and capacity development. She was previously the Director of Marine Science at WWF-US, Senior Director of Research and Monitoring at RARE, and Principal of Fox Conservation, LLC. She was the PI of a working group on "solving the Mystery of MPA Performance" at the Social-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), which resulted in a paper in the journal Nature. Helen received her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley in 2002, investigating coral reef recovery and rehabilitation options from blast fishing. She has received numerous grants and awards, authored > 30 scientific publications, logged > 1,000 dives, and once lived underwater for 10 days. She is married with two daughters and enjoys spending her scant free time with friends and family, preferably outdoors.