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Priya Shyamsundar

Lead Economist

Arlington, VA

Priya Shyamsundar headshot.

AREA OF EXPERTISE

Economics, environment, development

MEDIA CONTACT

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Biography

Priya Shyamsundar is Lead Economist at The Nature Conservancy. With extensive experience on the economics of environment and development, Priya’s research covers a range of local to global urban and rural environmental problems. 

At TNC, she leads a Global Science program of economists and quantitative social scientists who integrate human well-being considerations into decision-making processes, assessing trade-offs and distributive outcomes, and analyzing governance, economic, social and behavioral drivers to ensure sustainable and equitable conservation.

Priya has served on advisory panels for the Government of India, the World Bank,  IGBP and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada. Previously, Priya was founder director of SANDEE, a research network focused on solutions to shared environment-development challenges across seven countries in South Asia, and also consulted extensively for the World Bank. As a member of IUFRO’s Expert Panel on Forests and Poverty, she was involved in an IPCC-type global assessment of forests and poverty and has served as a member of the Science Taskforce supporting the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

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