Leah Samberg is a postdoctoral research associate with the Global Landscapes Initiative. Her research addresses the interaction of social and environmental processes in small scale agricultural landscapes, and trade-offs between food security and conservation. She has worked in southern Ethiopia to determine the effects of farmer management on agricultural biodiversity, with The Nature Conservancy to assess the benefits of conservation initiatives for rural communities, and on a National Science Foundation Coupled Natural-Human Systems project linking pastoral livelihoods to grassland sustainability on the Tibetan Plateau. She works across disciplines, from ecology and conservation genetics to social science and ecological economics. Leah spends her free time backcountry skiing, running, writing and working in the garden.