Michela Izzo is an environmental specialist. She has a degree in Environmental Science and a master degree in Wind Engineering. In 2011 she obtained a PhD in Land and Environment, developing a thesis on “Analysis of climate and its dynamics in the Dominican Republic and influences on land”.

She has experience in developing environmental impact studies and feasibility studies related to renewable energy use at a local community scale, having worked with multinational enterprises.

Since 2006 she has been collaborating with the Small Grants Programme (SGP) of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), accompanying processes of local development under a community participatory scheme. In this period she has been developing a wide experience in educational processes, at a technical, academic and community level. With her cooperation, more than 40 community micro hydropower systems have been implemented, which benefit more than 4000 families and over 20000 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. She is competent in vulnerability studies, having worked in team and individually at analysis of land vulnerability to climate change, as well as at climatological studies. She collaborates with different academic institutions, both national and international ones, on themes related to scientific investigation on land and climate and education. She works as independent consultant, having collaborated with numerous agencies, among which the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Oxfam International, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), carrying out studies on specific environmental themes. Among the works executed, she participated in the elaboration of the Second and Third National Communication on Climate Change of the Dominican Republic. She is Executive Director of GUAKIA AMBIENTE, a Dominican No Governmental Organization which works to improve quality life of people in the Hispaniola Island, promoting environmental sustainability through scientific investigation, community initiative accompanying and local empowerment impelling.