Consultant to support BRI’s Center for Mercury Studies
ashley.bastiansz@briwildlife.org.

Ashley completed her Master of Science degree focusing on Environmental Toxicology and wrote her thesis on mercury exposure and associated health impacts with mercury-added skin lightening products. She has extensive background in environmental policy, scientific communication, technical report writing, and laboratory analysis. Ashley has worked with various intergovernmental organizations, including the Secretariat of the Minamata Convention on Mercury and the Group on Earth Observations. Before joining BRI, she was an Associate on Programme Management with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity researching new trends in synthetic biology.

Ashley joined BRI to support the Center for Mercury Studies, primarily for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project, GEF 10810 “Eliminating Mercury Skin Lightening Products- Jamaica, Gabon and Sri Lanka” (Hg SLP Project) which BRI is co-executing with the World Health Organization. She is excited to support capacity building and awareness raising for this project and assist in meeting the obligations of the Minamata Convention.

• McGill University, 2022 – M.S., Renewable Resources
• University of Guelph, 2018 – B.S., Environmental Sciences

• Mercury in skin-lightening cosmetics and artisanal and small-scaling gold mining
• Effects of contaminants on human health
• Environmental Policy
• Climate change mitigation
• Waste and Chemicals Management