Dr. Mary Melnyk is the Environmental Security and Resilience Division Chief for USAID’s Asia Bureau and has 30 years experience working on community development, biodiversity conservation and the environment in Latin America and Asia. She has been in the Asia Bureau since 2001 and is currently engaged in USAID efforts to address water security, glacier retreat and the conservation of tigers and snow leopards. She has also developed and facilitated public-private sector alliances linking environmentally sustainable and socially responsible products to markets.  Past work has included a body of research analyzing forest conflict in Asia.

Her Ph.D. is in ecological management from Imperial College of the University of London and quantified the economic and nutritional values of forest foods to rural livelihoods in Southern Venezuela.  She graduated summa cum laude with her B.S. in zoology from the University of Maryland, College Park.