Ellyn Damayanti is a certified and registered professional engineer with more than 20 years of experience working on forestry, land use, biodiversity conservation, and rural development programs across Indonesia, India, Ghana, Nepal, and Timor Leste. Her background is in forest resources conservation. By further utilizing participatory approaches, she supports communities to diversify and stabilise their livelihoods, and also supports local governments and non-governmental organizations with development and project planning, policy analysis, and sustainable financing in ways that are aligned with sustainable forest management, climate change mitigation, and with respect to environmental and social safeguards. She is currently holding a position in IPB University as a research fellow and in the IUFRO Division 6 as deputy coordinator as well as coordinator for Research Group 6.10. Rural Development.