Background
Allison Leidner is the program manager for the Energy & Infrastructure program area. Energy & Infrastructure works to bring NASA solar and meteorological datasets to support renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable infrastructure applications.
A conservation biologist by training, Allison began her tenure at NASA in 2010 as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow working with NASA's Biodiversity program. She coordinated and managed numerous aspects of the program, led involvement in special activities such as the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress, and served as a liaison to the domestic and international conservation remote sensing community via her work with the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS). Allison also led NASA’s involvement in the Third National Climate Assessment through a U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and later served as the co-chair for the USGCRP Sustained Assessment Interagency Working Group. She received a NASA Special Service Award for this work in 2014.
Prior to becoming the first program manager for Energy & Infrastructure, Allison led the development of a Climate & Resilience applications program and was also the program manager for Education and Communication within NASA's Earth Science Division. In this latter role, she managed early career research and many of the Earth Science Division’s communications activities. Additionally, Allison was the program manager for the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program, an interagency and international hands-on environmental science and education program. She currently serves as the GLOBE Senior Advisor.
Allison’s academic research focused on the ecology and conservation of rare and endangered species. With an eye toward developing practical recommendations for natural resource management, she investigated the impacts of habitat fragmentation on butterfly communities to identify conservation strategies to promote landscape connectivity. She also researched the recovery planning process for plants and animals listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Prior to joining NASA, Allison worked as a spatial conservation planner for The Nature Conservancy’s Caribbean Division. Allison earned a Ph.D. in Zoology from North Carolina State University and a B.S. and M.S. in Biology from Stanford.