Director of ICATALIST, member of the European Scientific Council on Climate Change, lead author of IPCC Working Group II on Adaptation, Vulnerability and Impacts. She collaborates as an expert in the Spanish Citizens’ Climate Assembly.
At ICATALIST her role focuses on the development of strategic projects related to climate change adaptation and sustainability for different stakeholders, social innovation and innovation-based public policy. She leads an interdisciplinary team to implement projects that aim to have a positive impact, based on a range of products and services around shared values.
Founder and Director of ICATALIST. Elena completed her PhD at King’s College, London. She holds a Master’s degree from Cambridge University and a Master’s degree in Investigative Journalism, Data Management and Visualisation from the Juan Carlos I University with the newspaper “El Mundo”.
She was Associate Professor at IE Business School and Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics as Alcoa Research Fellow.
Professionally, Elena has worked with several organisations, including UNESCO, FAO, UNDP, the EU Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, universities and basin agencies, as well as with the private and third sectors.
She has published on a variety of topics mainly related to water security, social innovation, collaborative decision making, water governance, climate change adaptation, policy evaluation, knowledge management and transfer.
Its current main focus is on climate change adaptation, collective action and the role of green infrastructure, as well as strategic (ground) water management.
" We only reflect the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are found in the inner world. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change."
- M. Gandhi
– CEO and founder of Icatalist
– President of the BRIGAID Connect Association
– Lead author IPCC
– Member of the European Climate Change Advisory Council
– Expert at the Citizens’ Climate Assembly
Yara has 10 years of experience as a researcher, teacher, and consultant, supporting the development and implementation of Nature-based Solutions, mainly working in terrestrial ecosystems. She did his PhD at University College London (UCL) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Institute of Zoology. Her thesis doctoral analysed strategies and policies of restoration of ecosystems in the biome Atlantic Forest of Brazil. She studied for a degree in Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (BSc Environmental Science) and the University Autónoma of Madrid, and has a Master’s degree in Management, Environmental Monitoring and Modelling from King’s College London (KCL).
Yara has extensive international experience, working in Latin America, Africa and Europe on projects on ecosystem conservation and restoration, sustainable agriculture, natural resource governance and political ecology. She collaborates as a lecturer and researcher with several universities in the United Kingdom and has participated in assessment reports for international conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services).
Shennan-Farpón, Y., Soterroni, A., Scarabello, M. and Visconti, P. (2024) Using policy scenarios to assess challenges and opportunities for reaching restoration targets in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Environmental Research Letters. https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-9326/page/Tropical_Landscape_Restoration
Durrant, E., Howson, P., Puttick, B., Potts, S., Shennan-Farpón, Y., Sari, N., Allen, N., Jo, Y., Grainger, M., Teh, Y.A., and Pfeifer, M. (2023). Existing evidence on the use of participatory scenarios in ecological restoration: a systematic map. Environmental Evidence. 12, 27, https://doi.org/10.1186/s13750-023-00314-1.
Archer, L. J., Müller, H. S., Jones, L. P., Ma, H., Gleave, R. A., da Silva Cerqueira, A., McMurdo Hamilton, T. & Shennan-Farpón, Y. (2022). Towards fairer conservation: Perspectives and ideas from early-career researchers. People and Nature, 00, 1– 15, https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10309
Shennan-Farpón, Y., Mills, M., Santos, A. and Homewood, K. (2022). The role of agroforestry in restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest: opportunities and challenges for smallholder farmers. People and Nature, 4, 462– 480, https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10297
Raatikainen, K. J., Purhonen, J., Pohjanmies, T., Peura, M., Nieminen, E., Mustajärvi, L., Helle, I., Shennan-Farpón, Y., Ahti, P. A., Basile, M., Bernardo, N., Bertram, M. G., Bouarakia, O., Brias-Guinart, A., Fijen, T., Froidevaux, J. S. P., Hemmingmoore, H., … Ziemacki, J. (2021). Pathways towards a sustainable future envisioned by early-career conservation researchers. Conservation Science and Practice, e493, https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.493.
Shennan-Farpón, Y., Visconti, P. and Norris, K. (2021) Detecting ecological thresholds for biodiversity in tropical forests: knowledge gaps and future direction. Biotropica, 00, 1-14, https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.12999.
Darrah, S., Shennan-Farpón, Y., Loh, J., Davidson, Nick C., Finlayson, M., Gardner, R. and Walpole, Matt J. (2019) Improvements to the Wetland Extent Trends (WET) index as a tool for monitoring natural and human-made wetlands. Ecological Indicators, 99, 294–298, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.12.032.
Dinerstein, E., Olson, D., Joshi, A., Vynne, C., Burgess, N.D., …, Shennan-Farpón, Y., Kindt, R., Lillesø, J-P, B., van Breugel, P., Graudal, L., Voge, M., Al-Shammari, K. F. and Saleem, M. (2017) An Ecoregion-based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm. BioScience, 67(6): 534–545, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix014.
Meng, H., Carr, J., Beraducci, J., Bowles, P., Branch, W.R., Capitani, C., Chenga, J., Cox, N., Howell, K., Malonza, P., Marchant, R., Mbilinyi, B., Mukama, K., Msuya, C., Philip J. Platts, Safari, S., Spawls, S., Shennan-Farpón, Y., Wagner, P., Burgess, N.D. (2016). Tanzania’s reptile biodiversity: Distribution, threats and climate change vulnerability, Biological Conservation, 204, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2016.04.008.
Brooks, T.M., Akçakaya, H.R., Burgess, N.D., Butchart, S.H.M., Hilton-Taylor, C., Hoffmann, M., Juffe-Bignoli, D., Kingston, N., MacSharry, B., Parr, M., Perianin, L., Regan, E.C., Rodriges, A.S.L., Rondinini, C., Shennan-Farpón, Y. and Young, B.E. (2016) Analysing biodiversity and conservation knowledge products to support regional environmental assessments. Nature SCIENTIFIC DATA, 3, https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.7.
They call on us to help the Earth heal its wounds and, in the process, heal our own.
- Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner
