Meet Kat Diersen

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Conserving biodiversity and wild places is Kat’s personal and professional passion, and she loves pursuing it here in the oldest mountain range in the world. Kat brings 20 years of experience in environmental policy and partner-driven habitat conservation to her role of Director of Conservation at New River Conservancy.

Her early career was spent as a conservation planner at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, where she guided the development of state and federally supported incentive-based habitat conservation efforts and pioneered innovative non-regulatory approaches to wildlife conservation. After pursuing graduate studies in environmental policy, she joined Defenders of Wildlife, where she focused on conserving imperiled aquatic species across Southern Appalachia through coalition-building, policy advocacy, and the development of novel, incentive-based initiatives to restore habitat on agricultural lands. At the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy, she was responsible for advancing the organization’s mission to protect herpetofauna and their habitats on private lands throughout the U.S.

Kat is delighted to bring her background and experience home to her beloved Southern Appalachia, and to focus on collaborating with partners and landowners to build healthy and resilient ecosystems across the New River watershed.

When she’s not preaching the virtues of riparian buffers or nerding out about flood-resilient green infrastructure, she can be found snorkeling in a river somewhere, working in her garden, or hanging out in the park with her very weird dog.

MA in Global Environmental Policy, American University

BA in English, Florida State University