Daniela Russi is the Food, Land and Water Policy Lead for WRI Europe. In this role, she produces and leverages peer-reviewed evidence to inform and influence land use and climate policy at the European and global levels. She is currently focusing on impacts of bioenergy and biofuels in terms of land use and emissions, particularly in the aviation and maritime sectors.

Before moving to WRI in 2024, Daniela led the policy team of the British Ecological Society (BES), the largest European association of ecologists. Before that, she spent nine years at the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), an independent sustainability think tank, where she led and contributed to a wide range of projects on different aspects of the elaboration, implementation, governance and evaluation of EU environmental policy.

Daniela holds a PhD in Environmental Sciences-Ecological Economics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

As befits a born-and-raised Italian, she’s always on the prowl for a scrumptious coffee in London, where she lives.