Picture a Conservation Biologist

Lisa Stevens was the curator for Giant Pandas and Great Apes. She helped design the Think Tank exhibit which won an AZA Exhibit Award in 1996.

Devra Kleiman was the first woman to be hired as a scientist at NZCBI. She began working in 1972, the same year as the arrival of the Zoo's first pair of giant pandas.

Dr. Mary Hagedorn created the first ever coral biorepository! There, she stores cryopreserved coral specimens to act as a backup for failing coral reefs. She is even working on a Smithsonian wide project to create a biorepository on the Moon.

Katherine Ralls was a mammalogist who officially started working at the Zoo in 1976. In California, she worked on a project to detect kit fox scat using a trained dog.

Did you know that there is a way to calculate what a species needs to thrive in the wild? Jennifer Mickelberg calculated that a sustainable golden lion tamarin population would be 2,500 individuals in 4,800 hectares of connected and protected land.

Dr. JoGayle Howard was one of the most influential scientists of her time. She oversaw the birth of hundreds of endangered species babies and modernized artificial insemination techniques.

Did you know crocodiles play? Former reptile keeper Lauren Augustine reported one of the first ever occurrences of observed play behavior by Cuban crocodiles.

Jilian Marie Fazio was a former zookeeper on Asia Trail who went on to become the Species Survival Plan Coordinator and studbook keeper for clouded leopards.

Janine Brown worked with Asian elephants at NZCBI for years, discovering a specific hormone increase that helps facilitate breeding.

Melanie Bond was one of the first female keepers at NZCBI. Working with orangutans, she spent time teaching them sign language in an effort to build communication.

Maria Inês Castro originally studied maned wolves under Dr. James Dietz. In the mid-1980s she became a part of the first attempt to reintroduce golden lion tamarins to the wild.

Sara Hallager has worked at NZCBI since 1987. As an expert in bird husbandry and the current curator for the bird house, she has worked on several conservation and reproduction projects for species such as the kori bustard and flamingo.

Fernanda Abra runs the Reconnecta program. Working with indigenous communities in Brazil, she builds canopy bridges over busy roads to help arboreal animals cross safely.

Xuehua Liu worked as a research affiliate with NZCBI for many years. Studying panda movements, she has worked to restore bamboo forests in China.

One of the founding members of Kleiman's initiative to rewild golden lion tamarins, Lou Ann Dietz ran the community engagement program. She held contests for local school children, inspiring them to learn about golden lion tamarins.

Mary Allen worked for NZCBI from 1986-2002. As a nutritionist and commissary manager, she was responsible for managing animal diets, but she also did a lot of research. Most of her papers were about reptiles!

Becky Raboy was a fellow at NZCBI, studying tropical forest fragmentation. In 2005, she gave a lecture about how tropical forests can provide homes to tamarins while providing shade for some crops.

Marty Fujita was NZCBI's International Conservation Officer, stationed in Indonesia. She researched bats!