Mercedes Stickler
Mercedes Stickler
Associate, People & Ecosystems Program
mstickler@wri.org+1 (202) 729-7719
M. Mercedes Stickler is an Associate in Ecosystem Services for Development. She is primarily responsible for coordinating the design and implementation of interactive online teaching materials to help high school and university students in Kenya interact with spatial data on environment and livelihoods based on WRI’s 2007 publication Nature’s Benefits in Kenya: An Atlas of Ecosystems and Human Well-Being.
In addition, Mercedes is working closely with the International Livestock Research Institute and other local research partners to map and value ecosystem services provided by Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands.
Mercedes’ interests center around sustainable rural livelihoods, and her research experience incorporates issues related to ecology, environmental economics, and land rights. Prior to joining WRI, Mercedes helped author a major global report on recent trends in large-scale agricultural investment and managed two international conferences on land policy and administration at the World Bank. She has spent several years living and working in South Africa, where she earned her Master of Science degree from Rhodes University with the support of a U.S. Fulbright Grant. While based in rural South Africa, Mercedes also visited with farmers, community organizations, and policy experts in Mali, Mozambique, and Zambia to inform agricultural grant-making at the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Sciences with a concentration in policy (economics) from Northwestern University.
