Yumiko Jakobcic is a doctoral student in natural resources, co-advised by Dr. Saleem Ali and Dr. Adrian Ivakhiv. She also serves as the director of the Winooski Valley Park District, a non-profit organization that manages 16 natural areas across 7 towns in Chittenden County, Vermont. For her dissertation, she is using the park district as a small-scale case study of transboundary natural resource management, or the management of resources across multiple jurisdictions.

"Natural resources do not conform to political boundaries, but a lot of the regulations that we create act as though they do. I am using geographic information systems to see what impact individual town boundaries have on managing resources at the regional level. I am hoping that some of the lessons learned will be applicable to larger-scale scenarios."

Yumi received her BS in natural resource management from Grand Valley State University, and her MEM in conservation science and policy from Duke University. She has worked for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, and volunteered at the Natural Resource Conservation Service. Yumi serves on the Rubenstein School Board of Advisors, and in her spare time, she enjoys hiking, kayaking, and exploring Vermont.