Eileen Acosta is the Data and Monitoring Coordinator for the Forests and Land Use Program at WRI Brasil. She coordinates initiatives focused on monitoring forest and landscape restoration, defining indicators, and integrating geospatial, environmental, and socioeconomic data. Her work contributes to assessing results, generating evidence, and supporting strategies and decision-making related to conservation and restoration.

Before joining WRI Brasil, Eileen completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Kent State University in the United States, where she evaluated restored wetlands as nature-based solutions to improve water quality in Lake Erie. From 2014 to 2023, she worked at The Nature Conservancy as a Freshwater Specialist, providing technical and scientific support to initiatives related to aquatic ecosystem conservation, sustainable agriculture, and water funds. She developed monitoring plans, spatial analyses, computational models, and research on the hydrological benefits of nature-based solutions. She also supported the development of situational analyses, theories of change, baselines, and indicators for monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

Eileen holds a PhD and a master’s degree in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), a master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems from CLAS-ITC Bolivia-Netherlands, and a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Sciences from EARTH University in Costa Rica.