Cheli Sinclair is the Chair of the Strategic Advisory Group for Conservation Optimism, and also sits on the board of conservation app Key Conservation. Her work focuses on how to connect people meaningfully with wild spaces and threatened and endangered species in ways that promote action.
 
Cheli is particularly interested in how to effectively inspire, motivate, and empower people to get involved in conservation policy and practice, with a focus on citizen science and community building. Her previous research has looked at understanding how the engagement of non-academics and non-scientists in the gathering, analysis, and use of scientific data — aka “citizen science” — has evolved over the last hundred or so years, and how we can capitalise on current technology to maximise conservation efforts by facilitating “regular folks” to contribute in substantial, robust, and significant ways.
 
Cheli lives in England's South Downs National Park with her husband, conservation scientist Dr. Sam Sinclair and their son.  She enjoys hiking, painting, making temari balls, and researching new and innovative ways to address conservation’s most pressing issues.