I am an environmental anthropologist. My passion is in understanding how people relate to wildlife. Why do people value, love, and appreciate certain species? Why do they feel indifference, fear, or loathing of others? I care about the future of wild animals and about the people who live with them.

I study what influences human-wildlife interactions—things like cultural beliefs, social norms, livelihoods, institutions, and policies. In places where people are protecting wildlife and wild habitats, I try to understand: who are the stewards, what do they know, how do they live, what do they care about, what do they need?

These questions have inspired 30 years of field research, conservation, advocacy, writing, teaching, and photography. My experience is mostly in the Amazon regions of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. I have also worked in the Philippines, Paraguay, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica, Brazil, Indonesia, and Antigua and Barbuda.  

The tracks of my career have veered a bit. Though my PhD is in Anthropology, I am based in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, at Texas A&M University.

Though I am a university professor, I am practitioner, too, learning from, listening to, and collaborating with people who are leading conservation efforts on the ground. These are people who understand nature and culture as deeply entwined, and who see wild animals as ancestors and kin. Most of my conservation work is overseas, and so as an outsider, my role is to support local leaders as much as I can, in rural communities, universities, government offices, tourism companies, and conservation and development organizations. I am honored to have co-founded a non-profit organization in Botswana, Ecoexist, aimed at fostering human-elephant coexistence in the northern Okavango Delta.

I publish research with my graduate students in academic journals, but I care about communicating and sharing my work outside of science, too. I care about flipcharts in village workshops, minutes from stakeholder meetings, policy briefs for government ministers, and photographs and stories that reach larger audiences in popular news and social media. I am especially excited about sharing stories of conservation and stewardship through documentary film.