Dr. Carol Franco is an ecological economist with expertise in food security, ecosystem services and policies for economic development and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Dr. Franco is a Senior Research Faculty in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech. She is currently the advisor of Nature-based Solutions for the Ministry of Environment of the Dominican Republic and a member of the Science-Policy Advisory Committee (SPAC) and an Advisory Board Member of Science Diplomacy Center of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI).e.