Polen Cisneros

Polen Cisneros is a Project Manager at IFAW with several years of experience in combating international illegal wildlife trade. She supported the INTERPOL General Secretariat as a consultant to the Environmental Security Sub-Directorate’s Project WISDOM by managing the implementation of the Environmental Crime and Firearm Nexus, conducting research on East African law enforcement’s response to ivory trafficking and providing them guidance and assistance, and developing a wildlife poaching investigation guide. She has also served as consultant to the OECD as a part of their Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade, providing policy recommendations as a result of the data collection and analysis of more than 300 wildlife trafficking cases, as well as acquiring and aggregating data from peers, governmental agencies, and universities relevant to conservation projects. While at IFAW she has supported illegal wildlife trade law enforcement interdiction work through cybercrime monitoring and intervention strategy development as a Policy Analyst, and, in her current role, is organizing law enforcement and judiciary trainings in Latin America and the Caribbean region, managing a protected wildlife species poaching and trafficking database for the purpose of project monitoring and evaluation, and providing other media, communications, policy and operational support. She received a master’s in International Affairs from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs and dual bachelors in Political Science and International Studies from the University of California, Irvine.