Colleen M. Scanlan Lyons is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in strategic planning, network development, impact assessment, and due diligence for social inclusion in sustainable development. She collaborates with local-level, social-environmental leaders and entrepreneurs, and serves as a liaison among academic, nonprofit, governmental, and private sectors. Colleen has over twenty years of experience working in the Amazon and Atlantic Forests of Brazil and has also developed projects in Belize, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Uganda, and throughout the United States.

Colleen currently serves as the Project Director for the Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF) Secretariat, housed in Boulder, Colorado at the University of Colorado. The GCF is dedicated to a subnational, jurisdictional approach to promoting low emissions development and avoided deforestation in important forested regions of the world.

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