Luke Sanford and Christy Magerkurth

- Yale School of the Environment and Architecture for REDD+ Transactions

Jurisdictional REDD+: Using Carbon Markets to Finance Tropical Forests at Scale

September 30, 2025 - 12:00 PM

Luke Sanford and Christy Magerkurth will explore the basic concepts and momentum behind jurisdictional REDD+, or government-led programs to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation at the national or large subnational level. They will discuss the main differences with project-level REDD+, as well as examine the key methodological aspects for setting baselines at the jurisdictional scale.

Speaker Biographies

Luke Sanford – Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy and Governance, Yale School of the Environment

Luke Sanford is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy and Governance at Yale School of the Environment. He graduated from Yale in 2021 with a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Affairs from the political science department and the School of Global Policy and Strategy. Sanford’s work focuses on environmental policymaking–especially how political institutions mediate the relationship between the environmental preferences of constituents and the incentives and actions of policymakers. He also studies the distributional consequences over space and time of decisions about natural resources, and how those play in to policymaking. Sanford develops methods for using new sources of digital data, including text and satellite images, to measure individual and group preferences, and to observe outcomes on the ground. Sanford uses those to help understand preferences for different policies, and what the effects of those policies are.

Christy Magerkurth – Managing Director, Architecture for REDD+ Transactions

As Architecture for REDD+ Transaction’s Managing Director, Christina Magerkurth supports the ART Executive Director and oversees all aspects of the program to ensure the efficient and effective operation of the ART team, including internal processes. This includes program operations, communications, stakeholder engagement, and strategic positioning of the ART program. Magerkurth has 20 years of experience in the environmental field including broad carbon market and climate change experience in the areas of carbon offset verification, project development and GHG reporting. Magerkurth has a B.S. in Engineering & Applied Science (Environmental Engineering) from the California Institute of Technology and an M.Eng. in Environmental Management from Cornell University. She is a licensed Professional Engineer.