Wendy-Lin Bartels is on the Project Team for the Florida Natural Resources Leadership Institute.

She is especially interested in rural development, family farming, and the convening role universities can play to facilitate knowledge exchange among diverse stakeholder groups. She has worked on several domestic and international climate-and-adaptation projects with multi-disciplinary teams of climate, crop, forestry, and hydrological modelers in their efforts to make research products more relevant to society (e.g. AgMIP, PINEMAP, Southeast Climate & Extension). Within this context, she examines the participatory methods and institutional arrangements that can help scientists to link more effectively with practitioners, bridge society-academia divides, and expand understandings.

Wendy-Lin has worked internationally in Africa, S. Asia and Latin America.  In the Brazilian Amazon, she explored a multi-stakeholder land-use planning process that encourages small-scale producers to implement sustainable practices that provide environmental services.  She continues to work with collaborators in Brazil on a resilient family farming project that aims to connect universities, NGOs and communities to foster relevant, problem-driven science that is linked to practice.