Board members

David has spent a decade working in developing countries in the public health sector. He sees this project as "a sustainable way to address extreme poverty and starvation." He believes this project can counter many poverty-driven environmental issues by providing widespread environmentally-sound employment. He looks forward to seeing Greenstand obviate the devastation of landscapes by clear-cutting trees for charcoal and subsistence agriculture. He loves to defy gravity.

Tom Morrison is one of the founding members of Greenstand. He completed his PhD at Dartmouth College in 2011, where he studied the impacts of land fragmentation on migratory wildebeest in Northern Tanzania. Tom has broad interests in conservation, population biology and animal behavior. He has research projects in Tanzania, Scotland and the US that examine the consequences of herbivore movement, particularly migratory movements, on disease and species interactions, often relying on GPS telemetry and direct field observations. He leads field projects in Tanzania and works closely with a network of collaborators and students to address questions that improve outcomes for biodiversity. He joined the University of Glasgow in 2016 to work on a long-term study of wildebeest movement ecology in Serengeti. More recently he has begun work on the impacts of parasites and pathogens on animal movement, and is keenly interested in questions about trade-offs between conservation and development in lower-income settings. 

Steve is a social entrepreneur and conservationist with 15 years of senior management experience in rural development, environment and sustainability across Africa. His passion is for holistic development and tropical conservation that integrates environmental, economic and social sustainability. He founded the Mpingo Conservation Development Initiative, a pioneering community forestry NGO in Tanzania, before going on to lead the work of Farm Africa in Tanzania and the Forest Stewardship Council in Africa. Prior to all this, Steve worked in IT systems development and has a long-standing interest in how technology can be leveraged for sustainable development solutions. Greenstand thus unites these various passions and interests in a single organisation. Steve brings to Greenstand a broad perspective of sustainable development and a wide network of contacts across this space, especially in Africa.

Dr. Tuyeni H Mwampamba is a Research Professor at the Institute for Ecosystems and Sustainability Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. A Tanzanian national, she obtained her PhD in Ecology from the University of California at Davis. She moved to Mexico for a postdoctoral job in 2009. As an interdisciplinary scientist, she combines social and ecological methods to understand the multiple benefits of forests for different stakeholders, the effects of policies on natural resource management, and the impacts of management on forest recovery. Much of her work revolves around understanding the sustainability of charcoal production from local to global scale. She is a strong advocate of participatory approaches and inclusive processes for designing and implementing research and interventions in local and indigenous communities. 

Alicia has extensive experience in remote parts of East Africa. She has planted trees and worked on social and environmental issues all over the world. Her passion and expertise in ecology and cultural anthropology are invaluable assets to our mission. Besides her role in long-term planning, she keeps us realistic about the social and environmental impact of this project, zeroing in on strengths and weaknesses in our processes and vision. “Nurturing nature and social welfare from the roots up” is her mode of operation. She specializes in issues related to the environment, conservation, gender and livelihoods primarily in East Africa.

Isaac is the CEO of Launch Alaska and the fund manager for Launch Alaska Fund II — a $3 million fund that invests directly in the accelerators' cohort companies. Isaac has worked with hundreds of early stage companies and entrepreneurs responding to Alaska’s food, water, transportation and energy challenges. Isaac's previous roles include State Director at the Alaska Small Business Development Center. Vanderburg sits on the Board of Commonwealth North, and leads the Energy & Energy Efficiency subcommittee and the Carbon Pricing subcommittee of Alaska's Climate Action Leadership Team.

David Meyers is an environmental finance expert and entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in sustainability, conservation and education, environmental economics, and ecological research. He holds a Doctorate in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy from Duke University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. David has spent well over a decade in Madagascar and has worked in 46 countries. In Madagascar, he helped the country plan and execute a tripling of the area under conservation, including establishing the Makira Natural Park 370,000 hectare protected area using REDD+ financing.