Darla Munroe

Darla Munroe is the executive director of research and cross-cutting initiatives at the Lincoln Institute, leading efforts to support and coordinate the collective body of knowledge produced through the Institute’s work and fostering research strategies to advance its policy and educational activities. She is a geographer with research interests in economic-environmental interactions, especially forested ecosystems at the urban-rural interface globally. She has worked for two decades to understand land change and its social and environmental implications, using geospatial analytical approaches, statistical models, and qualitative research methods. Before joining the Lincoln Institute, she was professor of geography at the Ohio State University. She is also a fellow of the Global Land Programme, an international scientific network coordinating research on the role of land systems in ensuring global sustainability. Most recently, this work was featured in the paper Ten facts about land systems for sustainability, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. She obtained her Ph.D. in geography from the University of Illinois, a master’s in applied economics from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in economics and international affairs from the University of Colorado.