ASU opens nominations for two conservation leadership programs
By the numbers:
- More than 800 women surveyed for a global study of women in conservation leadership
- 95 leadership programs reviewed as part of the study
- More than 1,500 enrollments across more than 30 Conservation Futures Academy courses in its first year
- Four ASU conservation degree pathways begin in spring 2027
What we heard at Climate Week
Climate Week begins with goals, announcements and commitments. By Friday, many of the conversations come back to the people expected to deliver them.
Throughout the week, ASU Conservation Futures talked with conservation practitioners and organizations about the work ahead and what people need to do it. At The Nest Climate Campus, the Nature Hub and events across New York, conversations with organizations including Conservation International, Nia Tero, Oceans 5, Skill Up for Earth, Rare and the Jane Goodall Institute touched on different parts of the same challenge: conservation work increasingly requires people to lead across disciplines, organizations, communities and sectors.
On Monday, Amber Carter, a marine social-ecological scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, asked whether a country that depletes its ecosystems to grow its balance sheet has succeeded. At the Nature Hub on Wednesday, Monica Dean, director of the Ocean and Climate Diplomacy Initiative at Oceans 5, turned a conversation about ocean finance to the workforce. She asked how to make sure "we have the people and the capacity trained to help do the work." Jen McGowan, senior global futures scientist at ASU, answered directly: "We need scientists that can speak finance."
Those conversations are also a reminder that conservation leaders need support as their responsibilities change.
During Climate Week, ASU opened nominations for two Conservation Futures Academy programs built for experienced conservation leaders: the Women in Conservation Leadership Retreat and the Conservation Futures Executive Fellowship.
Catch up on the week: the kickoff from The Nest, a year of work with partners, the ocean plenary at the Nature Hub and the new course with Nia Tero.
Building a program around women in conservation
The Women in Conservation Leadership Retreat brings conservation leaders to Tucson, Arizona, for three residential days in January 2027, followed by a structured session three months later.
The program centers on decisions participants are already making, including negotiation and governance, board readiness, funding strategy and institutional influence. The cohort format gives participants room to work through leadership challenges with other women in conservation and build mentorship and trusted peer networks.
The design draws on research into what women working in conservation say they need. A global study published in October 2025 surveyed more than 800 women working in the field, interviewed women in leadership roles and reviewed 95 organizations running leadership programs. Researchers from Latin America, Europe and the United States carried out the work, supported by Re:wild and the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance.
Women participating in the research identified needs that extend beyond leadership training alone, including sustained mentorship, trusted peer networks, opportunities to work through challenges with other women and support for the pressures that come with senior leadership. ASU heard similar needs directly from women in conservation while developing the program.
"At Climate Week, some of my best conversations were with women who lead conservation organizations, and many of them told me they had built their careers largely on their own," said Lexine Hansen, senior global partnership manager for conservation and sustainability at ASU Learning Enterprise. "Training can prepare women for leadership. Peers are what sustain them in it. The retreat gives them three days in Tucson with women who understand the work and the pressure that comes with it."
The location is also part of the experience. Participants will spend time in Sonoran Desert conservation landscapes and visit institutions including Biosphere 2 and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
Preparing leaders for responsibilities that cross sectors
The Conservation Futures Executive Fellowship addresses a related challenge for senior conservation practitioners whose responsibilities increasingly cross disciplines and sectors.
Conservation leaders may be asked to understand ecology while managing organizations, budgets and teams, working with governments and communities and making decisions involving finance, policy and other areas outside their original expertise.
McGowan described that kind of shift at the Nature Hub. Her work at The Nature Conservancy moved from studying marine protected areas across the Indo-Pacific to sovereign debt restructuring, "talking about conservation trust funds and basis points and debt-to-GDP ratios."
Research into conservation leadership shows where that support falls short. A 2020 landscape study of more than 100 conservation leadership programs, led by the American Museum of Natural History's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, identified unmet needs including long-term support for conservation leaders , especially at mid-levels of experience, and greater breadth and depth in leadership skills.
The Conservation Futures Executive Fellowship is being developed around those needs. Over six months, participants will work on a challenge from their own organization while taking part in two global experiences and learning alongside a cohort of other conservation leaders.
"You're going to require a set of skills that the conservation scientists 30, 40 years ago didn't have to learn," Lukas Wenrick, senior director of learning innovations at ASU Learning Enterprise, said Tuesday at the Green Jobs Pavilion. "They didn't know how to fly a drone, but we're going to have to."
What we take home
The conversations ASU had at Climate Week kept returning to a field in which people move between science, policy, finance, technology, communities and leadership, often within the same role. Those conversations reinforced the importance of staying connected to practitioners and organizations as those roles continue to change.
"We're grateful to the partners who spent time with us this week and were so generous with what their teams need next," said Orlando Cazarez, director of global conservation and sustainability learning initiatives at ASU Learning Enterprise. "They know this work better than anyone. We're taking those conversations home, and they'll help shape what Conservation Futures Academy builds in its second year."
That is part of what Conservation Futures Academy is designed to do. Short courses and certificates give working practitioners ways to build specific skills. Cohort programs create opportunities to work through challenges with peers. The new leadership programs extend that learning for people taking on broader responsibilities.
And beginning in spring 2027, the Rob Walton School of Conservation Futures will add a Bachelor of Science in conservation and three master's pathways for people preparing for careers in the field.
Together, those pieces give ASU ways to support learning at different points in a conservation career and to keep adapting that learning as the work changes.
Climate Week gave ASU a place to share what Conservation Futures has built in its first year. Just as importantly, it gave the team another week of listening to the people who will help inform what comes next.
Nominations for the Women in Conservation Leadership Retreat and Conservation Futures Executive Fellowship are open now.