Teresa Bertossi, PhD

Sentinel Landscapes Support Advisor

Teresa Bertossi joined LegacyWorks Group as a Sentinel Landscapes Support Advisor, where she mentors and supports Sentinel Landscape Coordinators across the United States. In this role, she helps strengthen cross-sector partnerships, build communities of practice, and support collaborative efforts that advance resilient working landscapes and shared national outcomes.

Teresa has over a decade of experience working at the intersection of food systems, conservation, social-ecological resilience, and applied research, with a focus on supporting place-based partnerships in complex, multi-sector landscapes. Her work emphasizes systems thinking, facilitation across difference, and mentoring landscape leaders and collaborative teams to translate shared values into practical, durable outcomes.

Before joining LegacyWorks, Teresa coordinated a multi-state, federally funded regional initiative, stewarding a $15 million federal cooperative agreement and working closely with federal and regional partners to support effective collaboration, evaluation, and cross-regional learning. She worked with rural, agricultural, and Tribal partners to strengthen partnerships, clarify roles and processes, and support inclusive decision-making across diverse contexts.

Teresa brings experience in mixed-methods research, participatory design, and systems-oriented evaluation, with a grounding in agroecology and place-based approaches to resilient working landscapes. She values the relational work required to sustain collaboration in values-complex and politically diverse environments, and is particularly interested in how trust, learning, and shared stewardship contribute to long-term landscape resilience.

Teresa earned a PhD in sustainability, with research grounded in rural sociology, biocultural landscapes, and place-based approaches to resilient working landscapes. She grew up in the Northwoods of Michigan and is now based in northern Minnesota.

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