Board Member
Kristin Prukop grew up wild and free in western New York making burrows out of the snow piles at the edge of her driveway and roaming the woods with her family’s black lab Captain Nemo. After graduating from Brown University with a degree in Development Studies she traded her down parka for sunscreen and went to work on community health projects in Samoa and southern Africa. Although a lifelong lover of nature, she did not join the global conservation movement until working for the Ministry of Health in Nepal on a $25,000,000 grant proposal to prevent childhood malaria — a response to increasing malaria rates linked to deforestation and climate change. After a brief freak-out about the future of our planet, she flew to DC and, still jet-lagged, took a job leading strategic partnerships and fundraising for Conservation International’s Asia-Pacific Field Division. She held the position for eight years, leading a global team with staff in Singapore, Indonesia, China and the US, until the birth of her son Nate inspired her to shift her focus locally. She served as Director of Corporate Relations for Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business from 2015-2017. Now based in San Francisco, she is currently raising two boys (ages 3.5 years and 7 months) while deepening her efforts to bring children closer to nature. She believes passionately that all children need nature — wild places to be explored with their senses and imaginations — as a fundamental human right. You can often find her in San Francisco’s Botanical Gardens and Glen Park Canyon with a bug viewer and backpack full of snacks.