Marcella D’Souza
Director of the WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS)
Marcella D’Souza is Founder-Director of the WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS), a transdisciplinary applied research think tank in climate change adaptation, ecosystems and natural resources management and sustainable development in India. Marcella’s expertise is in gender, women’s empowerment, community health and in integrating a wide range of subjects from ecosystems and land restoration, water resources management, sustainable rural livelihoods and climate change adaptation.
A physician by training, she opted for Community Health early in her career. Marcella is a Takemi Fellow of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). She has spent over 35 years in rural development of which six years were on the Andes Mountains in Peru, where she managed an extensive community-based rural health program. From 1995 to 2001, Marcella was the Program Coordinator for Women’s Development in the well acclaimed bilateral Indo-German Watershed Development Program. She served as the Executive Director of WOTR from 2005 to 2019. She initiated several innovative approaches in WOTR and W-CReS which resulted in a more gendered, inclusive, ecologically sensitive and holistic approach to rural development, which now includes a strong climate adaptation and resilience perspective.
With her extensive experience, Marcella continues to redefine resilience studies to provide evidence-based lessons to inform policy and practice, ensuring local voices echo in the corridors of national and global decision-making. She is passionate about scaling W-CReS’ science based approach while enhancing the adaptive capacities of vulnerable communities.