Frances Seymour is an internationally recognized expert on tropical forests and climate change. She currently serves as Senior Policy Advisor to the Woodwell Climate Research Center and IPAM Amazonia. In May 2025, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from UNC, where she also serves on the Board of Visitors of the Institute of the Environment.

She is the lead author of the 2016 book Why Forests? Why Now? written during her tenure at the Center for Global Development. Most recently, she served in the Biden Administration as Senior Advisor for Forests in the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate at the U.S. Department of State.

Prior to her government service, Seymour conducted research writing as Distinguished Senior Fellow at World Resources Institute (WRI), including publishing a research report on the non-carbon climate services provided by forests. She also chaired the board of the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (which she rejoined in 2026), and served as a US Science Envoy and a McCluskey Fellow in Conservation at the Yale School of the Environment.

Seymour has worked extensively in Indonesia, including five years based in Jakarta with the Ford Foundation early in her career, and a decade consulting from Washington for various private philanthropies. She also served for six years with ambassadorial status as Director General of the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) for which she was decorated by the Government of France with the Order of Agricultural Merit.