Laura Heady, MS, is the conservation and land use program coordinator at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program through a partnership with Cornell University. Heady provides science-based guidance and assistance to local community leaders and land trust partners to advance biodiversity knowledge and conservation planning in the Hudson estuary watershed. She has developed technical assistance strategies, tools, outreach programs, and partnerships that have engaged many hundreds of decision-makers and produced successful conservation outcomes.

She is co-author of Creating a Natural Resources Inventory: A Guide for Communities in the Hudson River Estuary Watershed and is the creator and manager of the volunteer Amphibian Migrations & Road Crossings Project. She was a 2016 Patterns for Progress Fellow and former member and chair of her town’s Environmental Conservation Commission. Heady earned her Master of Science degree in biology with an emphasis in ecology from Idaho State University and a Bachelor of Science in environmental science from Rutgers University.