Nancy Colleton is President of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), a diverse set of professional educators, communicators, and scientists devoted to leveraging earth observation resources to better understand our home planet and communicate the impacts of climate change to the world. Nancy leads numerous initiatives that promote better understanding of the changing planet. Her recent work focuses on studying innovative private sector applications of USG Earth observation data, which provide governments, businesses, and consumers new critical decision-making capabilities in areas such as climate, natural disasters, health, air quality, water quality, and GHG monitoring. She has been quoted and published in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, Physics Today and numerous other publications. In addition, Nancy has a long history of working in the conservation area to help amplify the importance of space-based observations as well as citizen engagement to promote the understanding and protection of nature.

Nancy serves on the Fairfax Water Board of Directors, is an advisor to We Don’t Have Time, and recently finished two extended terms as an active member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) US Board. She’s chaired the IUCN’s Commission on Education and Communication where—along with World Commission on Protected Areas chair—led the 2016 launch of the #NatureForAll global campaign that now includes more than 570 organizations in 80 countries. Ms. Colleton was a key organizer behind the 2003 Earth Observations Summit, which led to the establishment of the Group on Earth Observations, facilitated the Alliance for Earth Observations, and co-chaired the Environmental Information Services Working Group of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Science Advisory Board (2009—2016). Ms. Colleton holds a BA degree in Communications from Hood College.