Sally Palmer

Sally Palmer is the Director of Science & Policy for The Nature Conservancy in Tennessee. She provides science and strategic support to Conservancy programs across the state and has expertise in conservation planning, state & federal natural resource policy, and freshwater conservation. Sally also works with government agencies and nonprofit organizations on watershed management and landscape-scale conservation planning in Tennessee and adjacent states in the Southeastern U.S. Recently she served a term on The Nature Conservancy’s President’s Advisory Council, and she served as a member of a TNC science task force that updated “Conservation by Design,” the organization’s approach to implementing our strategic direction.

Since she began working for TNC in 1999, Sally has gained experience communicating on many scientific and conservation issues with a wide variety of audiences, and she has a keen interest in how effective science communication strategies are developed and deployed. For her Science Impact Project, Sally is tackling questions related to climate change communications, in particular the challenges posed by the diverse socio-cultural dynamics of potential audiences and the effects of bioregional frames of reference.