Rebecca Stanfield McCown, PhD

Rebecca Stanfield McCown is the Director of the National Park Service’s Stewardship Institute located at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park in Woodstock, Vermont. Rebecca’s work focuses on supporting park service staff and partners so they can in turn better serve the American public. 

Through building partnerships and advancing creative approaches to community engagement and leadership development, the Stewardship Institute brings practitioners together to advance common goals for conservation stewardship. As Director of the Stewardship Institute, Rebecca manages programs that focus on youth program evaluation, enhancing cultural competency and diversity skills, leadership development, and evaluation and promotion of practices that contribute to successful public land management. 

Rebecca began her National Park Service career as a student employee at the Institute (then known as the Conservation Study Institute) while completing her doctoral research, and later served as a program manager at the Stewardship Institute. Most recently, Rebecca has played an important role in developing and launching the NPS Urban Agenda.

Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resources Recreation and Tourism from Colorado State University and a Master of Science and Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. She currently lives in Lebanon, New Hampshire with her husband and son.