Elizabeth Soderstrom

Elizabeth holds a senior staff position at American Rivers in river conservation. Her responsibilities include major donor fundraising, development and management of a California Advisory Council, grant writing, and project management around acquisition of water rights for instream flows, corporate water footprinting, salmon restoration in coastal watersheds, and green infrastructure approaches such as meadow and floodplain restoration. In addition, Elizabeth is working under a Switzer Collaborative Leadership Grant to insert climate change into FERC re-licensing. Elizabeth joined American Rivers in 2008. For the previous seven years, Elizabeth was the Senior Director for Sierra and International Rivers at the Natural Heritage Institute. During this time, she managed the Sharing Water Project on the Okavango River in Southern Africa, launched the Mountain Meadows Initiative, and applied adaptive management principles to river restoration as a Switzer Leadership Fellow and a Donella Meadows Fellow . She also assisted both the CALFED Science Program and the Sierra Nevada Conservancy in developing and using performance measures. Previously, Elizabeth served as an International Engineering and Diplomacy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science at USAID's Center for the Environment in Washington, DC, and at USAID's Regional Center for Southern Africa based in Gaborone, Botswana. In these positions, she implemented the International Coral Reef Initiative, was an advisor and representative to the Ramsar Convention on Weltands of International Importance, and the Convention on Biodiversity, and researched and designed a role for United States assistance in the management of international rivers in southern Africa.