Director, Ocean Justice

Bray Beltran is a spatial ecologist with extensive knowledge of species distribution modeling, climate and land-use change effects on ecosystems, and conservation science. He holds a M.S. in Environmental Life Sciences from Arizona State University. His career goal is to promote biological conservation and sustainability in socio-ecological systems using the ecosystem services framework to inform policy and decision-making.  

Bray was born on the Caribbean shores of northern Colombia. At a young age his family moved to Bogotá, 9,000 feet above sea level in the Andean Cordillera. He lived there until 2000 when he moved to the United States. However, the Caribbean is his culture, his heart, his people, his place. It was in the shores of his native Santa Marta where seeing subsistence fishermen struggle to make ends meet where Bray first wondered how fishermen could always catch enough fish to provide for their families while also making sure there will always be fish to catch. 

After obtaining his graduate degrees, Bray spent ten years living in the Northern Rocky Mountains protecting their iconic landscapes. In fall 2023, Bray and his family moved to the mid-Atlantic where they are (re)learning to enjoy city living, rain and big trees.  

In the mid-Atlantic, Bray has found community, a renewed sense of purpose in conservation, and luckily a reconnection with the Ocean through ocean conservation.