Rishi Das
Verra
Manager, Technology for Natural Climate Solution
As Manager of Technologies for Natural Climate Solutions, Rishi supports Verra’s engagement with technology companies, research, and innovation groups in the development of tools and applications of remote sensing, artificial intelligence, IoT sensors and other technologies for a range of NCS carbon credits. Rishi is an environmental scientist with 14 years of experience in forestry and ecosystem ecology, carbon science, and natural resource management in 16 countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Prior to joining Verra, he was a Program Officer for The Governor’s Climate and Forests Task Force, managing the Climate Pathways project on jurisdictional long-term decarbonization strategies in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. He has worked as a climate change specialist and technical advisor with a diverse group of institutions, from international agencies and donors (USAID, Norway, World Bank, FAO), national and regional government agencies, civil service professionals, NGOs, and civil societies (Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Peoples’ Science Institute, The Trust for Public Land), to local institutions and community organizations on agriculture, watershed management, forestry, disaster risk and resilience, climate change mitigation, and conservation/protected area management projects. Rishi has a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia, a M.S. from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a B.S. in Natural Resource Management from the University of California, Berkeley. He has received the Ecological Society of America’s Sustainability Science Award for his work on tropical forest resilience in Mexico, and has published in peer-reviewed journals, white papers, and technical guidance manuals on agriculture, forestry and land use change. In the past 6 years, Rishi has focused on developing technical tools, capacity-building, and applied research on measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) for REDD+ and ecosystem services accounting, national land use monitoring systems, and low emissions development strategies.
