Erica Garroutte
Erica was born and raised in Colorado, where her passion for conserving the environment and its benefits to us all began. Erica is passionate about building relationships with and supporting local communities with their work to conserve their environments and its benefits to their community and us all. Integrating lessons learned from her master’s degree in Landscape Ecology and nearly 15 years of experience working alongside local communities on their conservation initiatives in Colorado, East Africa, Mongolia, New Mexico, and Montana, Erica is passionate about building bridges across sectors, disciplines and among communities to advance conservation solutions.
Erica is the research program manager at the Institute for Integrative Conservation (IIC) at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Erica developed and manages the IIC’s Conservation Research Program that matches undergraduate students and faculty with external conservation partners to support applied research needed to advance the partner’s conservation outcomes. By design, the program aims to bring together a diverse community from across disciplines, sectors, and communities to work together to apply their unique perspective, knowledge, and skills to advance integrative conservation solutions. In this role, Erica works with conservation partners, students, and faculty to identify opportunities to advance integrative conservation and to build the next generation of compassionate conservation leaders.