Richard Friend | Dr Anna Schuhbauer | Nick Cleary
Richard Friend is an independent consultant with expertise in:
* water resource governance (including fisheries) and sustainable livelihoods
* food systems
* (urban) climate change resilience, vulnerability and adaptation
* urbanisation and social-environmental change
* participatory processes and knowledge co-production.
He has 30 years of international professional experience in team leadership; applied research and policy analysis; programme design and management; monitoring and evaluation; business development; capacity building; advocacy and facilitation of high-level policy dialogue.
“My experience includes leading regional implementation and capacity building programmes as well as research networks, providing technical assistance and conducting strategic planning evaluations for donors (DFAT, DFID, Sida, Danida), international NGOs (eg Oxfam), inter-governmental organizations (Mekong River Commission) and UN agencies (UNDP, UNCDF, FAO). Specialist expertise in Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam.”
Richard has collaborated with Woodhill Solutions Limited in two roles. Firstly, he provided analysis following our creation of an accessible online catalogue of inland fisheries materials sourced using AI to be used with correct permissions. Our team identified and collated tools and resources that support global inland fisheries governance and management. Following the retrieval and AI analysis of existing online materials, Richard contributed detailed recommendations on how to fill knowledge gaps with the creation of new tools. This project was commissioned by one of our US clients, The Nature Conservancy, and delivered in summer 2025.
Richard is now helping to deliver a livelihoods and nature-based solutions learning brief covering the South Pacific region to be published by WWF Australia as part of their Climate resilience by nature knowledge hub.
Dr Anna Schuhbauer
With extensive expertise in fisheries and ocean sciences, Anna specialises in transdisciplinary research approaches that encompass on-the-ground interviews, workshops with fishers, managers and policymakers, as well as the development of high-level theoretical frameworks to assess fisheries from local to global scales. She is highly experienced in compiling and assessing quantitative and qualitative data in data-poor situations and creating complex analytical models focused on economic and socio-economic datasets. Her professional experience spans NGOs, academia, and government sectors.
Recent projects include a socio-economic assessment of Peruvian small-scale fisheries through a human well-being lens, developing a collaborative community-based fisheries management guide for inland fisheries, and updating the global Anna collaborated in our recent project for The Nature Conservancy developing an online archive of materials supporting small-scale inland fisheries management around the globe. Her key contribution was the management of AI modelling to inform analysis for the archive.
Anna has also collaborated with Oceana, The Pew Charitable Trust, Coastal First Nation Great Bear Initiative and is associated with the Fisheries Economic Research Unit at The University of British Columbia.
Core skills include:
- Data processing: Python (Pandas, Matplotlib), prompt engineering, Airtable)
- Data visualization: Python (Pandas and Geopandas)
- Theoretical framework development
- Socio-economic and economic analysis
- Design and Implementation of Interviews and Surveys
- Writing and reviewing of scientific articles and reports
Nick Cleary is an experienced editor and online content developer. He supports Woodhill Solutions through:
* forensic editorial capacity
* highly capable research experience
* knowledge of programming in HTML5, CSS3, Java and C#
* familiarity with Microsoft Office suite, Visual Studio/Windows forms and Unity software, SQL database design and management, SEO, Squarespace
* online content editing and optimisation
* proofreading for the natural resources sector, including work with European Union publications
* sound knowledge of Scrum/Agile principles
He graduated with a First in Software Development. The predominant module of his final year was a 10,000 word content-driven dissertation, which required the gathering, analysing and interpreting of large amounts of data. Nick’s passion for written communication, combined with an ability to condense large amounts of research into concise segments meant he excelled at this.
Nick’s previous employment has included roles where he was a part of – and at times led – teams, teaching him the importance of close collaboration with colleagues. He was also a workplace trainer and realises the importance of passing on knowledge effectively. As a Union Representative, he was responsible for around 40 of his colleagues’ workplace wellbeing.
His degree course included two group project modules in which he worked using Agile methodology and collaborative software, including GitHub and Jira. Nick has also worked extensively with the Microsoft Office suite, for example delivering PowerPoint presentations and using Excel for data recording and analysis.
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