Nantucket Conservation Foundation

The Nantucket Conservation Foundation (NCF) is a 501 © 3 not-for-profit land trust located on Nantucket Island, MA and hosting a full time year round ecological research, restoration and stewardship team. NCF owns, protects, and stewards over 9000 acres of land and coastal shoreline, conserves Nantucket’s rare and significant natural resources, and engages in impactful ecological research to inform resource management and further our knowledge of Nantucket’s unique ecosystems and species.

The Living Laboratory of NCF’s 9000 acres provides space and resources to conduct research around 3 major themes: Sustainability, Resilience and Adaptation; Land Management and Restoration; and General Nantucket Ecology. NCF’s properties encompass the broad spectrum of wildlife and plant communities on Nantucket, providing opportunities for deep ecological understanding of fundamental questions. The focus of our research ranges from individual species to the ecosystem level to inform future land management, restoration, sustainability, resilience, and adaptation. The full-time research ecologists of NCF lead research, restoration and management through our ecology programs including our Wetland and Coastal Ecology Program, Wildlife Ecology Program, Plant Ecology and Botany Program and Restoration Ecology Program.

Our vision as a collaborative field station, leveraging our Living Laboratory and our extensive local ecological expertise, is to facilitate and expand fundamental and applied research that informs the conservation and management of Nantucket Island’s diverse habitats and promotes the sustainable health and functioning of these unique ecosystems.

NCF currently hosts two programs to attract research partners and foster collaboration. The Research Fellow Program invites researchers to conduct research using our 9000 acres of conservation land representing all habitats present on Nantucket Island as well as our extensive, local ecological expertise. The Program provides a community of researchers with access to NCF properties and a partnership with NCF’s Department of Ecological Research, Restoration and Stewardship. The Graduate Student Assistantship Program invites grad students to work with an NCF ecologist mentor over a field season, get real work field work experience while designing and conducting a research project as part of their degree work over one or two summers.

NCF Resources: 9000 acres representing all habitat present on Nantucket Island including salt marshes, coastal dunes, pitch pine forests, sandplain grasslands, coastal heathlands, coastal plain ponds and more. NCF’s extensive ecological expertise. Ability to design research around existing restoration projects. Facilitation of local field work including some logistical support.