About Margaret Owuor
Margaret is an Assistant Professor in Integrative Biodiversity Conservation Science at the Wyss Academy for Nature at the University of Bern with affiliation at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern. Previously, Margaret worked as a Lecturer in the Department of Hydrology and Aquatic Sciences, South Eastern Kenya University, Kenya. Margaret has a lot of interest in working with communities using transformative approaches to conserve freshwater, marine and coastal ecosystems, such as the assessment of ecosystem services. Though mainly trained in ecology, she has over the last seven years gained interest in issues at the intersection of science-policy-conservation-economics, spanning government, community practitioners and non-governmental sectors. Margaret is part of the National Geographic Rolex Amazon Expedition where she is implementing the socio economic assessment of mangrove ecosystem services in Cųruca, Para, Brazil. Margaret enjoys working with community groups to educate and empower them. Her research work on mapping and valuation of ecosystem services has also led to her winning grants from different organization like MASMA grant by Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association, the National Geographic Early Career grant to map the flow of mangrove ecosystem services in Mtwapa Creek and National Geographic Support for Women Grant (Lyda Hill) and WWF Russell E. Train fellowship on Ocean Management to carry out her project on valuation and mapping of mangrove ecosystem services in Mida Creek using the choice experiments and the matrix approach. Owuor holds a Ph.D in Marine and Coastal Management (Cum Laude) from the University of Cadiz, Spain. She is the Education and Science Officer of the Society for Conservation Biology, Africa Section.