Ira Stern is an environmental planner, manager, and professor specializing in watershed planning and protection, land management and recreation, and large scale regional planning. He has experience working with local communities in urban, suburban, and rural areas and has been involved as a professional planner in government, for non-profit organizations, in a private development firm, and as a consultant. He has a BA in History from Hobart College and a MS in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute.

Currently, he is Chief of the Natural Resources Division for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Water Supply. In tis capacity, he leads 32 environmental professionals engaged in the management of the City's 171,000 acres of land that is part of the water supply, 40 municipal water connections to the City's aqueducts, and downstream community issues associated with the operation of the NYC water supply system. This includes land stewardship, public recreation, forest management, property management, conservation easement monitoring, land use permitting, and ecological assessment and research (invasive species, wetlands, fisheries, plant ecology). Community water responsibilities include account management, metering, billing, master planning, community partnerships, and communications.

Previously at DEP, he was Regional Manager for Operatons at Rondout Reservoir and Neversink Reservoir from 2007 to 2012 managing the grey and green infrastructure of this water supply region including waterworks facilities, high hazard dams, roads, bridges, office and laboratory facilities and 20,000 acres of land. Beginning in 1995 at DEP, he was Director of Watershed Lands and Community Planning for 12 years and managed watershed protection programs that comprised the 1997 Watershed Agreement and Filtration Avoidance Determination. These voluntary programs consist of land acquisition and management, stream management and planning, whole farm and forest planning, community infrastructure and economic development. Served as a member of the City's multi-agency negotiating team that crafted the Watershed Agreement and represented NYC on the Boards of the Catskill Watershed Corporation and Watershed Agricultural Council.

Prior to DEP, Ira was Executive Director of the Dutchess Land Conservancy, was a founder and Executive Director of the Rondout-Esopus Land Conservancy, and served as Chairman of the Land Trust Alliance of New York.
Ira has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute (Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment) for the past 11 years and teaches courses in "Watershed Planning" and "Sustainability Indicators." He also serves as the Water Concentration Advisor for students seeking a Master's in Sustainable Environmental Systems.