Michelle DeFreese is embedded with the Ministry of Environment of the Government of Rwanda and is the project manager for the Waste to Resources: Improving Municipal Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste in Rwanda initiative. She has completed the executive certificate from Cambridge Judge Business School in Circular Economy and Sustainability Strategies and participated in the 2022 from linear to circularity workshop held in Kigali, Rwanda funded by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Michelle has been with GGGI since 2017 and previously served as a Mickey Leland International Fellow in Morogoro, Tanzania.
Before joining the Ministry of Environment, she worked at Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture as the administrative coordinator for academic affairs, extension and applied research. Prior to that, she served as an environmental audit and monitoring officer at Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) for more than seven years and also as the alternate focal point for the Montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, and the Nagoya Protocol focal point, where she managed different projects aiming at regulating access to the genetic resources. In her capacity as an environmental audit and monitoring officer, she conducted environmental audit activities for different projects under operation and monitored their compliance with environmental regulations.
She is a member of the African Women in science and Engineering. A Rwandan national, Beatrice holds a Master’s in biodiversity conservation from the University of Rwanda.
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