Deborah is the Policy and Communications Coordinator for the Watershed Council. Prior to joining the Council, Deborah acted as an independent consultant to help develop a climate change compliance branch for a local consulting firm. She focused on designing theoretical governance models for regional carbon markets.

Before this, Deborah worked as a Natural Resources Management volunteer for the Peace Corps in Senegal where she focused on agroforestry, environmental education, and health education. After spending another couple of years traveling in Africa and Southeast Asia and living as a ski bum in Canada, she made her way back to California, where she earned her Master of Environmental Science and Management with an emphasis in Political Economy of the Environment from the Donald Bren School in Santa Barbara. Her Master’s group thesis focused on the implementation of community-based water resources management BMPs and the dissemination of related design and education materials in the San Cristóbal de las Casas watershed (Chiapas, Mexico).

Deborah has also worked with UNEP’s Post-Conflict Branch in Geneva to develop a reconstruction plan for Rwanda that addressed the linked issues of refugee return and urbanization, water quality and sanitation, and urban/rural energy security. At Island Resources Foundation in DC, she researched the socio-economic, political, and environmental issues of island ecosystem regions to assess possibilities for future GEF-funded sustainable development projects. She also worked as an environmental educator with the National Park Service in Nome, Alaska where she tried hard to keep warm.

In her far-flung travel and tourism career, Deborah has worked with Great White sharks in Gansbaii, South Africa and guided school groups around the islands of Hawaii.

She has a Bachelor’s in Political Science and Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.