Tell us about your background. Where are you from? What brought you to Mpala? Where have you previously studied or conducted research?

I am from the United States but have had the great fortune of calling Mpala home for many years. I originally came to Mpala to manage the Grant’s Gazelle Project in 2011, who I worked for until leaving for the Maasai Mara for a brief stint in 2013 to work on the Mara Lion Project and the Mara Cheetah Project. I returned to Mpala in 2014 to manage the Hippo Project and then transitioned to the Roosevelt Resurvey Project on Mt Kenya in 2015. I have also spent a year each conducting research in South Africa, Namibia, and Zambia. Having finished my graduate studies, I was happy to return to work on the Mpala in October 2024.

What projects are you currently working on at Mpala? What are your research goals?

I am currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow for the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior on the Mpala Baboon Research Project. We are busy studying baboon movement ecology and social behavior and using our datasets as a base from which to build capacity with our growing cohort of Kenyan Ph.D and M.Sc students. It is exciting to be able to work with emerging data collection techniques and mentor Kenyan graduate students.

What is one of your favorite things about working at Mpala?

I like the close knit communities that the researchers living on base are able to build. Being able to interact with each other informally over meals means that we can have a variety of impromptu multi-disciplinary discussions shared between senior researchers in the field as well as grad students. Sundowner debates on how to get one researcher’s study species to stop eating another researcher’s study species are especially fun.

What impact do you believe your time at Mpala will have on your professional career?

I have really enjoyed the opportunity to expand my mentorship and science communications skills. Capacity building at a Kenyan level is essential for building true sustainability in conservation and watching the skills grow is very gratifying. I have always enjoyed science communications and I am able to present our work to everyone from young students to ambassadors.