Mentors.
Mentors on the West Africa Mammal Fellowship are world-renowned academics and conservation practitioners who volunteer valuable time to raise the next generation of biologists and conservationists in the region. Mentors are typically PhD-level career conservation scientists who bridge gaps in local capacity by bringing their technical expertise to serve as co-supervisors on fellows' degree projects. Mentors work closely with in-country professor to supervise fellows on the West Africa Mammal Fellowship.
Tigga Kingston
Texas Tech University, USA
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Dr. Tigga Kingston is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock. Her interests encompass community ecology and the conservation of paleotropical bats. Tigga has worked in Southeast Asia for nearly three decades, during which she has made groundbreaking discoveries including "harmonic hopping" - a form of acoustic differentiation that drives speciation in bats and raised local capacity through her non-profit Southeast Asia Bat Conservation Research Unit (SEABCRU). As a direct result of her training and research in the region, she has inspired a new generation of local bat biologists, who now drive bat research in Southeast Asia.
Paul Bates
Harrison Institute, UK
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Dr. Paul Bates has been the Director of the Harrison Institute since 1994. He has described/co-described 17 mammal species new to science and helped raise over $2.3 million in project money for biodiversity research, capacity building, and conservation projects in Asia, Arabia, and Africa. He was the principal investigator of four UK government-funded Darwin Initiative projects and the project manager of one EU Erasmus+ project. He is a founding member of BCA (Bat Conservation Africa) and SEABCRU (Southeast Asia Bat Conservation and Research Unit).
Karen Sears
University of California, USA
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Karen E. Sears earned her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago’s Committee on Evolutionary Biology and is currently a Professor in the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at UCLA. Her lab seeks to harness the diversity of mammals to identify processes driving change in organisms during their lives and lineages over evolutionary time and inform challenges in human health. Current topics of study include the developmental basis of the unique phenotypes of bats and marsupials and the developmental, cellular, and molecular basis of aging in bats.
Amy Wray
UW-Madison, USA
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Amy Wray is a biologist and disease ecologist with a background in using and developing molecular methods. She received her PhD in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a minor in Entomology. Her previous research includes foraging ecology, bioacoustics, white-nose syndrome, chronic wasting disease, and invasive species. More recently, Amy has focused on creating pipelines for streamlined data analysis and visualization using R and other open-source tools.
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Iroro Tanshi
SMACON, Nigeria
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Dr. Iroro Tanshi is a tropical ecologist and conservationist, a lecturer at the University of Benin, Benin City. Her work focuses on community structure and diversity patterns along environmental gradients in intact and disturbed environments with a special focus on unexplored areas and discovering populations of at-risk species. Her work has uncovered 12 new country records for Nigeria. She co-founded Small Mammal Conservation Organization (SMACON), where she is the Director of Research Programs. She is the founding co-Chair of Bat Conservation Africa (BCA). Dr. Tanshi has received prestigious international awards including the Future for Nature Award (2020), and Whitley Fund for Nature Award for her conservation work. She is also deeply committed to strengthening the capacity of African field biologists who ultimately lead research and conservation in their own countries.
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Benneth Obitte
SMACON, Nigeria
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Benneth Obitte is a conservation ecologist who uses socio-ecological systems to guide effective conservation interventions. This includes using innovative interdisciplinary tools to understand bat hunting and bat meat consumption in southern Nigeria, the focus of his PhD research. Ben received his PhD from Texas Tech University. He has conducted multiple surveys in Nigeria, works with local communities to develop conservation solutions, and is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of budding ecologists in Nigeria. He is a National Geographic Explorer and the first African winner of the Kate Barlow Awards. Ben co-founded the Small Mammal Conservation Organization (SMACON), where he is the Director of Conservation Programs.
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Lucia Guaita
Otterfonds
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Lucia is an environmental sociologist with an MSc in International Development from Wageningen University. Since 2020, she has worked with European foundations and nature conservation NGOs as a grant manager, knowledge coordinator, and communicator. One of her proudest publications is ''Sustainable Nature Reserves: Guidelines for Privately Protected Area'', a hands-on manual from practitioner to practitioner that contains knowledge, experiences, and tips on how to create and manage privately protected areas and reserves. She’s currently affiliated with Lookfar Conservation and Stichting Otterfonds, and is a fundraising consultant for the Snow Leopard Conservancy.
Lucia is also co-producer of ''El Poder del Jaguar'' (The Power of the Jaguar), a podcast sharing interdisciplinary perspectives on challenges and best practices on how to frame effective coexistence practices to live with jaguars and other apex predators.
She lives between Italy and the Netherlands and enjoys spending her free time hiking and climbing mountains, and learning about local cultures and foods.