Odean Serrano

Bio

Dr. Odean Serrano has over 30 years in the Federal Government working both for NASA and the Intelligence Community. While with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), Odean designed and spearheaded critical environmental issues with a nexus to security. For over a decade she drove a holistic Environmental Security framework that spanned the topics of Climate Security, Food Security, Water Security, and Ecosystems Security. She designed and led inter-agency symposiums that unified experts across the Intelligence Community (IC), Department of Defense (DoD), Academia, and Industry. The culmination of Dr. Serrano’s work on environmental issues and the nexus to security were recognized by the former Director of the NGA and Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Her initiatives led to DNI James Clapper appointing Dr. Serrano as the first IC Lead for Combatting Wildlife Trafficking and as the Intelligence Community representative to the U.S. Presidential CWT Task Force.

Dr. Serrano’s area of expertise also includes forging multiple interagency governmental and international agreements while with NASA and NGA. Her public policy and strategic plan development expertise includes co-authoring several presidential executive orders, authoring policy directives for Congress, and has written Agency level strategic plans. Odean also worked in the Chief Information Office possessing a strong background in data strategies, systems design and big-data architecture to foster advanced multi-stakeholder analysis.

Odean served as an IC Center of Academic Excellence liaison to assist universities to create intelligence-related coursework, research, and internship programs. She also has designed, taught undergraduate and graduate-level coursework as an adjunct professor at several universities for courses in Natural Ecosystems and Sustainable Ecology, Human Geography, and continues to provide guest lectures.

Odean is the founder of Countering Wildlife Trafficking Institute, designed to implement collaboration and systemic thinking to advance partnerships that bridge wildlife conservation research, law enforcement, and strategic intelligence. In this capacity she also designs and implements tailored internships and provides personalized mentoring for young professionals.

Dr. Serrano’s academic and professional background in Environmental Science and Policy has led to her specialty area of advanced research on Intelligence Fusion Analytics for Environmental Crime Convergence and the nexus to Governmental Policies, Strategies and Mission Priorities.

Doctorate, Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University
Masters of Science, Environmental Science and Public Policy, Johns Hopkins University
Bachelors of Science, Mathematics from University of South Florida, Tampa