The Kathryn Fuller Science for Nature Fund

Former president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund-US, Kathryn S. Fuller represents a new kind of conservationist. "It used to be that the best training for conservation was a degree in biology," Fuller says. "While biology is still key to what we do, successful conservation nowadays also involves economics, international law, finance, diplomacy and social science - among other disciplines."

Trained as both a lawyer and a biologist, Fuller took over the helm of the world's largest international conservation organization in 1989 after seven years serving first as director of WWF's wildlife trade monitoring program, then general counsel and executive vice president. Prior to joining WWF, she headed the Wildlife and Marine Resources Section of the Justice Department's Land and Natural Resources Division.

At WWF, Fuller's emphasis was on innovative conservation methods such as debt-for-nature swaps, conservation trusts, the inclusion of women in grass roots projects and creative partnerships to conduct conservation on large, eco-regional scales.

"We're still about saving endangered species," Fuller says, "but doing so today requires larger and more innovative solutions that can address global threats such as habitat destruction, toxic pollution and climate change."

Examples of large-scale projects undertaken during Fuller's tenure include creation of the world's first conservation trust fund for Bhutan and a partnership with the World Bank and the government of Brazil to triple the amount of rainforest under strict protection in the Amazon. In her 15 years as president and CEO, WWF also doubled its membership, tripled its revenue and expanded its presence around the globe.

Fuller credits her naturalist mother - along with a childhood reading list that included the works of Joseph Conrad and Edgar Rice Burroughs - for kindling her interest in conservation and awakening a passion for far away places like Africa.

But it was a trip to Tanzania in 1973 to study wildebeest behavior that made her decide to choose conservation as a career - a decision that would take her from the University of Texas Law School, where received her J.D. degree in 1976, to the Department of Justice, where she worked first in the Office of Legal Counsel and then the Land and Natural Resources Division. She became chief of the division's Wildlife and Marine Resources section in 1981, with responsibility for supervising litigation involving the trade in animal and plant resources. She came to WWF the following year to direct the American arm of TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring arm of WWF and the World Conservation Union - IUCN.

Fuller received her B.A. from Brown University and did graduate studies in marine, estuarine and environmental science at the University of Maryland. She is a recipient of the U.N. Environment Programme's Global 500 award and holds several honorary doctorates.

Ms. Fuller also chairs the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation and sits on several other non-profit and corporate boards. She is a trustee of Brown University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.