Pooja Kanwar is a water policy and sustainability leader with experience spanning local, state, federal, and global water resources initiatives. She currently is a Managing Project Scientist at Young Environmental Consulting Group, where she leads stakeholder outreach and engagement and watershed and natural resource project planning. Her work emphasizes collaborative governance, systems thinking, inclusive public engagement, and the integration of scientific and community knowledge into natural resource management. She has a deep passion for equity, environmental justice and traditional ecological knowledge, and is constantly weaving these aspects into strategic problem solving portfolio.

Before joining Young Environmental, Pooja served as a Water Policy Consultant with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. In that role, she advised on groundwater and surface-water law and policy, coordinated regulatory and interagency initiatives, and led major efforts including statewide drought planning and response, the Minnesota Water Availability and Assessment, the Lake Superior Collaborative, and work to strengthen the consideration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in natural resource decision-making. She previously held planning and leadership positions with the USDA Forest Service, including serving as a Natural Resources Planner on the Superior National Forest and as a Regional Planning Team Leader for forest plan revision under the 2012 Planning Rule.

Pooja’s interdisciplinary research examines water policy, collaborative and multijurisdictional governance, ecological risk, social-ecological systems, and the relationship between human communities and water resources. Her international work has included research in New Zealand and India, and she has authored publications on water availability, climate change and the water-food-energy nexus, ecological risk assessment, environmental governance, Indigenous values in policy, and ecosystem services. She has also taught and lectured on water policy, ecological economics, environmental policy, sustainability, water resources management, and ecological risk assessment. 

Pooja earned a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont, an M.Sc. in Resource Management and Administration from Antioch University New England, and a B.Sc. in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Iowa. In her free time Pooja can be found gardening, collecting records, cooking Indian recipes, and getting into nature with her family.