Welcoming New SciPol Project Manager Viola Belohrad!

Viola has over ten years' experience working on sustainable natural resource management and human development with a focus on tropical forests. She has worked in and led multicultural and multidisciplinary teams and projects including in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, DRC, Mozambique, Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. Her previous work encompasses fieldwork with forest-dependent communities on community-based monitoring and forest management, gender equality, and indigenous and local knowledge as well as research into drivers of deforestation and community conservation initiatives.

Viola holds a master's (MSc) degree in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford, UK, where her research focused on indigenous social-environmental entrepreneurship with fieldwork in the Ecuadorian Amazon. She has a bachelor's (BSc) degree in Environment and Bio-Resources Management from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria.

As a Project Manager in the Science-Policy Programme Viola will be responsible for the operational planning and implementation of projects within the Programme, as well as represent the Programme at international meetings and conferences.

Viola follows Dikshya Devkota, who has left the IUFRO team to take up a position at the Global Environment Facility. We wish Dikshya lots of success and happiness in her new job!


We are also happy to inform you that Nelson Grima of the SciPol team has taken up the position of Deputy Coordinator.


See the SciPol team at: IUFRO: Team / Science-Policy Programme / Science in IUFRO