GreenBiz

Valerie Craig is Deputy to the Chief Scientist and Vice President of Impact Initiatives for the National Geographic Society. The Office of the Chief Scientist oversees Science and Exploration work for the Society, including Grants, Explorer Programs, NatGeo Labs, Impact Initiatives, and International. In her capacity as Vice President, she has strategic and operational oversight for the series of flagship programs and projects that are helping to push the boundaries of exploration, further understanding of our world, and collaboratively generate solutions for a healthy, more sustainable planet. Valerie joined National Geographic in 2011 to help build the Society’s ocean programs, and she has worked across the organization on a variety of issues and oversaw the Lindblad-National Geographic Fund. Most recently Valerie has been leading the development of Source to Sea, an effort to accelerate and amplify solutions to keep plastic out of the environment and our ocean. Prior to joining National Geographic, Valerie worked with TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, where she produced the first analysis of US imports of coral and reef-associated species and investigated existing and potential methods for monitoring illegal trade of tuna products.  Before that, Valerie was Senior Project Manager for Seaweb’s Seafood Choices Alliance, where she worked across the seafood industry and ocean conservation community to find and create opportunities to make the seafood marketplace more sustainable. Valerie has a Masters in Environmental Management from Yale’s School of Forest and Environmental Studies and a Bachelor’s in International Relations from UC Davis. She is passionate about the environment, and spends as much time in nature as possible. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and two sons, where she embraces her role as a hockey mom, and loves to spend time with family and friends.