Concurrent Sessions 4 & 5B

Founder and Executive Director, GoodLands

Molly Burhans is an internationally recognized environmentalist, cartographer, and social entrepreneur. Molly is a vising scholar at Canisius College and adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Molly is an alumna of Canisius College (Philosophy ’14) and holds an M.S. in Ecological Design from the Conway School (’15). She is the founder and executive director of GoodLands, an organization whose mission is to mobilize large landholders to use their property for environmental and humanitarian good. Molly oversaw the creation of first unified data-based global map of the Catholic Church’s governing (ecclesiastical) jurisdictions at ESRI as an invited researcher. These maps premièred at the Vatican in 2016.

Molly has developed models and projects related to ecological restoration across geographic scales, global meta-state governance, conservation financing with non-taxable landholders, and data infrastructure deployment for global non-state actors. This work has gained interest and recognition from academic, governmental, and private sector organizations.

Molly's work has been covered by major media outlets including the New Yorker Magazine, America (Jesuit) Media, BBC, Forbes, L'Osservatore Romano (The Holy See’s official newspaper). and The Boston Globe. She is a leading voice and activist in the Faith for Earth space. She has been an invited speaker at numerous venues including universities, academic and technology conferences, the United Nations, TEDxBoston, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Molly was a member of the Vatican Arts and Technology Council (2016) and has been a delegate at various United Nations events, Vatican symposia, including the Vatican Youth Symposium.