CANOPY TO IMPACT INVESTING

For the past four decades, Nalini Nadkarni has ascended trees in the rainforest as well as forests in the northwest to observe the many plants, animals, and microbes that live in the upper canopy. But that is not where her efforts stop.

Reaching beyond the scientific community, biology professor turned NatGeo Explorer at Large has created science education programs for people who are incarcerated, programming for churches and synagogues, and worked with Mattel to create a set of Explorer Barbies to inspire girls to study nature. Despite the sedentary nature of trees, Nadkarni wants people to recognize the multiple ways trees enrich our lives and life on our planet.

With that same spirit of creating connections, Nadkarni recently became a Sorenson Impact Institute Senior Fellow in Residence at the U where she sees common ground and potential for complementary efforts between ecology and social impact investment. At Sorenson she is bringing her expertise, experiences, and contacts in ecology, conservation biology, and the environment to the Institute to create new pathways to connect ecological actions and programs with the power and mission of impact investment.

You an listen to TreeNote, two-minute features about trees by Nadkarni each week at kuer.org/podcast/treenote.