BIO
Dr. Toral Patel-Weynand brings 30 years of experience to the USDA Forest Service working across academia, the private sector, and federal government in a variety of roles in the environmental science and natural resources management arenas. Most recently as Director of Sustainable Forest Management Research focusing on forest management science issues and creating practical strategies and tactics to improve forest and rangeland conditions.
Toral has extensive experience in national leadership roles with the Forest Service and the US Department of State. In these positions, she built strong science-management partnerships to address complex resource challenges in the US and internationally. Toral spent her formative years in Bombay (Mumbai), India. Toral started her career in the Forest Service as the National Program Lead for Bioclimatology and Climate Change working on climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience building efforts on forests and rangelands nationally and internationally.
Prior to joining the Forest Service, Toral served as a Climate Science Advisor at the Office of Global Change at the Department of State and has represented the United States on UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) issues including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry, Research and Systematic Observations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. At the U.S. Geological Survey, she has served as the agency Advisor for Data Integration and headed up International Bioinformatics. Toral received her doctorate and master’s degrees from Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies with a focus on forest management, carbon modeling, and biogeochemical cycling. Toral has published over 100 publications, technical reports and 9 books on forest resources and management. She has also served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Washington, School of Forest Resources.