Mary Adelzadeh

As a long-time consultant for First Nations, Mary has over 20 years of experience working with tribal and federal governments and non-governmental organizations in project management, grant-writing, land and natural resource planning and protection, and facilitating collaboration.

She has been a co-lead for the Intertribal Indigenous Stewardship Project focused on creating and strengthening Indigenous networks, strategies, models, and investment opportunities for Indigenous-led stewardship in California. Mary previously served as a senior program officer at First Nations and as a project advisor to the Maidu Summit Consortium and Conservancy, where she supported efforts to restore Maidu Traditional Ecological Knowledge and establish a Maidu Cultural Park in California. Previously, she worked to protect tribal natural and cultural resources as the environmental director of the North Fork Mono Rancheria, a tribe in the Southern Sierra Nevada, and as a liaison between the Bureau of Land Management Lake Havasu Field Office and nine tribes in western Arizona.

Mary serves as an advisory board member to the UC Santa Cruz Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program. Mary also recently served on the State of California’s topical advisory panel Protecting Biodiversity and Advancing 30×30. Mary holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Biology and Management from the University of California, Davis. Mary earned a Master of Science degree in Resource Policy and Behavior with a concentration in Conservation Biology from the University of Michigan.