Kat Diersen

Conservation of biodiversity and wild places is Kat’s personal and professional passion, and she brings over 15 years of specialization in environmental policy to her role at ARC. Her early career was spent as a conservation planner at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, where she guided the development of state and federally supported incentive-based habitat conservation efforts and pioneered innovative initiatives to develop non-regulatory wildlife conservation approaches. She left to pursue a graduate degree, while also making her first foray into nonprofits as an associate in the North America Policy Program at the Society for Conservation Biology. She joined ARC after seven years at Defenders of Wildlife, where she focused on conserving imperiled aquatic species across Southern Appalachia through coalition-building, policy advocacy, and the development of novel, incentive-based initiatives to conserve species on agricultural lands. Kat holds an M.A. in Global Environmental Policy from American University in Washington, D.C. and a B.A. from Florida State University in Tallahassee. At ARC, Kat is responsible for advancing the organization’s mission on private lands throughout the U.S. She collaborates with partners and citizens to develop and implement programs that support conservation outcomes in harmony with landowners’ objectives, and she works on policy issues as they relate to herp conservation.