María José Pacha is a Biologist from Argentina. For 15 years María José has worked on issues of protected areas, climate change, and the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). She has collaborated with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and other international agencies. Since 2015, María José has been the Knowledge and Networks Coordinator of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) for Latin America and the Caribbean. She is currently the Knowledge, Learning and Communications Coordinator of the Climate Resilient Cities Initiative (CRC) — a 30-month programme funding research in 13 cities in Latin America that are working towards urban climate resilience, supported by CDKN and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). María José holds a Master of Science in Ecology and Environmental Sciences and a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Lancaster (UK).