Mhairi McFarlane is the Director of Science and Stewardship for the Ontario Region of the Nature Conservancy of Canada. She spent 6.5 years as the Conservation Biologist for the Southwestern Ontario subregion where she designed, implemented and managed field scale restoration of wetland, meadow and forest in the Southern Norfolk Sand Plain and on Pelee Island, and currently oversees stewardship work throughout Ontario. She holds an Honours Ecology degree from the University of Stirling, and a PhD in Ecology from the University of Exeter in Cornwall. Her thesis was on the behavioural ecology of Cape Sugarbirds in South Africa. She moved to Ontario in 2006, and had short contracts with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Bird Studies Canada before joining the Nature Conservancy of Canada in March 2008. She worked as the Conservation Biologist for southwestern Ontario before becoming the Director of Science and Stewardship for Ontario in September 2014. She has been managing non-native invasive species and conducting field-scale restoration throughout southwestern Ontario both with NCC and as a volunteer with the Thames Talbot Land Trust.