Katia Nakamura

Associate Program Director

Katia Nakamura is the Associate Program Director of the FLARE Network. Katia focuses on developing the network’s governance and supporting its strategic growth. Her research analyzes the socio-ecological impacts of biodiversity conservation funding in low-income tropical countries, with a geographic emphasis on Peru, and the effects of conservation interventions on Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and Local communities. Katia earned her Ph.D. and MS. in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in August 2022. A Fulbright Fellowship supported her graduate studies. Her dissertation research quantified the impacts of protected area funding on deforestation and human development in the Peruvian Amazon using quasi-experimental methods and machine learning. She also holds an MBA from Universidad del Pacífico and a BS in biology from Universidad Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru.

Her diverse background led her to work as a research assistant in the Peruvian Amazon, field coordinator at a marine station, chief of savings in rural microfinance in the highlands, and an entrepreneur working with local artists and designers in her hometown. She loves to travel and explore remote places, cook, knit, garden, and watch movies.