Valerie has spent more than 20 years empowering people to advocate for wildlife. Prior to joining Audubon in 2017, she held the position of Conservation Program Manager at the Philadelphia Zoo where she managed a suite of global conservation projects aimed at protecting everything from tigers to turtles. While at the Zoo, she created scalable models to maximize collective zoo visitor impact on issues facing wildlife and drive change in conservation practices - particularly with regard to corporate commitment to the use of deforestation-free palm oil. She also developed a number of regional initiatives, some of which focused on birds, and was fortunate to work closely with several Audubon staff even before officially joining the team. Valerie has a BA in Communications from Temple University and in her current role, develops integrated strategies to advance policy through local action with a focus on watershed health and climate change.