The Stimson Center announced today that Sally Yozell has been appointed as a Senior Associate and Director of the Environmental Security program. Yozell will join Stimson on April 1 and lead the Center’s work examining the impact of environmental crime on U.S. national and global security, and devising solutions to these troubling problems — with a special focus on illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing as well as markets and wildlife trafficking. Yozell will also oversee Stimson’s work designing and developing enforcement plans for marine protected areas (MPAs). Yozell joins Research Assistants Emma Myers and Amanda Shaver, and Nonresident Fellow David Michel on the Environmental Security team.

“I could not be more pleased to welcome Sally Yozell to Stimson,” said Stimson President and CEO Brian Finlay. “Sally has a remarkable track record of bringing together public, private, and civil society actors to protect the global commons. Sally will lead the Center’s growing portfolio of environmental security work as we develop solutions to the world’s most pressing transnational threats.”

Prior to joining the Stimson Center, Yozell was a Senior Advisor to Secretary of State, John Kerry and the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment — where she provided advice and technical expertise to advance U.S. policies in the international arena related to ocean, coast, climate, and wildlife protection. She joined the State Department to support and manage the Our Ocean Conferences starting in 2014, where she stewarded and developed many of the far-reaching outcomes resulting in conservation commitments and investments totaling over $9.2 billion and 9.9 million sq. km of marine protected areas, including the expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands, and the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monuments, as well as the first marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean. She was also instrumental in the global strategy that successfully created the world’s largest marine protected area in Antarctica’s Ross Sea.

Yozell previously served in leadership roles including, Director of Policy at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Regional Director for Marine Conservation at The Nature Conservancy, Vice President in the applied marine science group at Battelle Memorial Institute, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans at NOAA. She worked for almost a decade in the U.S. Senate as an environment and energy advisor to Senator John Kerry. Yozell holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Vermont.

“I‘m thrilled to be joining Brian Finlay and the innovative teams at the Stimson Center. Through their in-depth research and outreach Stimson has already recast the security conversation by showcasing the intersection of environmental and global security issues. Whether focusing on transnational crime associated with illegal fishing or addressing wildlife poaching in African nations, Stimson’s work has broken new ground,” said Sally Yozell. “I look forward to continuing to identify new approaches to confront the environmental threats undercutting U.S. and global security.” 

The Stimson Center is a nonpartisan policy research center working to solve the world’s greatest threats to security and prosperity.

Contact: Jim Baird; [email protected]; (202) 478.3413

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