Who we are
The Staff
Sarah Durant
Sarah has worked for more than 16 years in Tanzania. She became in charge of the Serengeti cheetah project in 1991 and has run this project for over 16 years expanding it into national and international programs. In 2002 she decided to set up the Tanzania Carnivore Program (TCP) under the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), which she coordinates as a principal investigator. Like Charles, Sarah is also a co Principal Investigator for the Mammal Atlas project, which started in 2005. Sarah nowadays mainly commutes between Arusha and London, where she works as a senior research fellow at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London.
Charles Foley
Charles started his work as a co Principal Investigator for the Mammal Atlas project in 2005. But Charles is also famous for his work on the long-term project on elephant monitoring in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania. Charles indeed started to work on elephants in 1993 as a Ph.D. student studying the effects of poaching on the social system of the African elephant in the Tarangire ecosystem.
Alexander Lobora
Alex started his current position as a Mammal Atlas project manager in 2005, but started to work as a database analyst for the Carnivore Project in 2003. He is based at the Carnivore Centre in Arusha, Tanzania. Alex's main responsibilities include overseeing the implementation all project activities, supervising the work of all project staff, liaising with other project leaders on all matters pertaining to the Mammal Atlas project, preparing monthly progress reports, managing project accounts, submitting quarterly reports, and obtaining relevant permits required for project operations.
Maurus Msuha
Maurus joined the Carnivore Project in 2002, as a Project Manager. Before that, Maurus was a project Manager for a NGO-government partnership for sustainable biodiversity action project with the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania, and this for 7 years. In 2005, Maurus left Tanzania to start a PhD on carnivore biodiversity, this in collaboration with the University College London and the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London. Maurus is expected to defend his work very shortly, and will soon be finally back at the Carnivore Centre.
Laura Simpson
As the field researcher of the Serengeti Cheetah Project, you get the Serengeti as your office! Laura is nowadays in charge of monitoring the cheetah in the plains of the famous National Park. Her main priority is to find 20 different cheetah groups per month. Once a cheetah has been found and identified, she collects the demographic data; the gps location of the animal, the number of individuals if she got lucky enough to spot a group, and then notes the sex of the individuals, estimates its belly size and assesses the individual's physical condition. If the project does not yet have DNA from the individual it is also her job to collect its faeces, which on a bad day can take a very very long time...!!
Dada Gottelli
With the loss of their habitat, cheetah populations are increasingly becoming fragmented and isolated. As populations become small, they become vulnerable to genetic problems such as inbreeding in the long term. However management strategies that mitigate the impact of these processes in wild cheetahs, need to be based on a sound understanding of the breeding system of cheetah. In the Serengeti we know the mothers (and often grandmothers and great grandmothers) of most of the cheetahs in the population, but we know very little about their fathers. And this is where Dada intervenes. Dada works at the Institute of Zoology, at the Zoological Society of London. She makes use of new techniques for extraction of DNA from faeces, which are then being used to identify the fathers in the population. This enables us to estimate the likelihood of inbreeding and losses in genetic diversity in isolated populations and hence plan the long term genetic management of fragmented populations of cheetah.
Nathalie Pettorelli
Nathalie is a research fellow based at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, who started to work with the Serengeti Cheetah project early 2006. Nathalie's work include analysing the fantastic dataset collected by the project, and disseminating the outcomes of these analyses by writing up articles and presentations.
Rose Arthur Mosha
Rose is our new, dynamic, Carnivore Conservation Action Plan Coordinator, and started early 2008. Like Alex, Rose is based in Arusha. Her main responsibilities include overseeing implementation of activities prioritised by the Tanzanian Carnivore Conservation Action Plan, developing a network of carnivore representatives from major stakeholders groups and identifying actors to implement activities laid out by plan, and maintaining close communication with all actors.
Amy Dickman
Amy joined TCP in 2005, starting a PhD on human-wildlife conflict in the Ruaha ecosystem, Tanzania. Before this, Amy worked for many years on cheetahs in Namibia. Like Maurus, Amy's PhD is developed in collaboration with the University College London and the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London. Amy became Dr Dickman early 2009, and she is now working as a Senior Research Fellow at WildCru, Oxford.
Trevor Jones
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Trevor has worked as a researcher in the Udzungwa Mountains since 2002, and in 2004 he discovered one of the populations of the new Tanzania-endemic Kipunji monkey. Early 2009 Trevor joined the carnivore centre to help coordinate the development of the new National Elephant Management Plan, which is due to be completed in June 2010.
Flora Gerson Kipuyo
Flora is our project secretary, and a daily ray of sunshine at the office. Like Alex & Edwin, she is based at the Carnivore Centre in Arusha, Tanzania. Flora is one of the oldest staff of the Carnivore centre, starting to work there in early 2003. Her main responsibilities include preparing reports, promoting and guarantying effective communication of the Mammal Atlas project with other systems of the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute and project stakeholders or attending visitors at the Carnivore Monitoring Unit.
Zawadi Mbwambo
Zawadi is the head driver and head mechanic for the Tanzania Mammal Atlas Project, but he is also the person you ask when no one seems to know what to do! Zawadi started at the same time as Maurus at the Carnivore Centre in 2002, and has been with us ever since. Like Mwakiro, his main responsibilities include driving project staff on request, engaging in field activities together with survey teams when required, performing regularly the servicing of vehicles and keeping records of all maintenance, and insuring the safety and security of all project vehicles when in charge.
Paul Baran
Paul is our field biologist. Paul actually started as Maurus's field assistant in Tarangire National Park in 2006, and joined the Mammal Atlas Project in 2007. Although Paul is based in Arusha, his main responsibilities include conducting field activities aimed at gathering information on mammal species all across the country! Paul works in close collaboration with Allen, our assistant field biologist.
Ismael M. Kivuyo
Ismael is our gardener, and he is the one being responsible for the cleanness and the beauty of our gardens at the Centre.
Allen Msafiri Mmbaga
Allen is the assistant field biologist for the Tanzania Mammal Atlas Project. Like Paul, Allen is based in Arusha but his main responsibilities include conducting field activities aimed at gathering information on mammal species all across the country.
Eliakim Nnko
Eliakim is our newly volunteer, working with the field team to collect data on mammal distribution and relative abundance across Tanzania. Eliakim works in close collaboration with Paul, Allen, Jumanne,Zawadi and Rajabu. He started to work with Carnivore Centre in February 2010.
Mwakiro Rajabu
Mwakiro is our driver and mechanic. His main responsibilities include driving project staff on request, engaging in field activities together with survey teams when required, performing regularly the servicing of vehicles and keeping records of all maintenance, and insuring the safety and security of all project vehicles when in charge.
Jumanne Ramadhani
Like Zawadi and Mwakiro, Jumanne is a TCP driver, and sometimes much more! Although his main responsibilities include driving project staff on request, Jumanne engages sometimes heavily in field activities together with survey teams when required.
Previous staff and interns
Edwin S. Konzo
Edwin was our database and Communication Officer, and started to work for the Mammal Atlas project in 2005. He was based at the Carnivore Centre in Arusha, Tanzania. Edwin main responsibilities included updating and maintaining the project database, preparing distribution maps for species distribution, analysing the GIS data for inclusion in the Species Action Plans or liaising with all our contributors - basically, if you send some data, there was a good chance that Edwin would receive them, enter them in our database, and send you an email to thank you for your contribution! Konzo left the carnivore centre in December 2008, and he is now working with Ilboru High School as a Mathematics and Physics teacher.
Boniface Osujaki
Boniface was one of our volunteers, working with the field team to collect data on mammal distribution and relative abundance across Tanzania. Bonifas thus worked in close collaboration with Paul, Allen, Jumanne and Zawadi. Boniface left in September 2008 to join the Mweka Wildlife College for a Diploma in Wildlife Management.
Brechtje Eshuis
Brechte started in 2008 with us as a volunteer, being based at the TCP centre in Arusha. Her main work was to collect data on animal distributions using published data – Brechte thus spent a lot of time reading papers and reports, always looking for new information on mammal distribution in Tanzania. Brechje joined her husband in the Serengeti National Park in January 2009.
Margaret Waweru
Margaret was our project coordinator for the Cheetah and wild dog range wide conservation planning. Margaret started with us late 2006, and like Rose, was based in Arusha. Her main responsibilities included establishing and maintaining a global network of data contributors that can provide information on cheetah and wild dog distribution and threats across Africa, designing an atlas database of sighting information for cheetah and wild dogs, encouraging regular contributions of sighting information to the database, identifying and obtaining access to relevant GIS data across range states that can be used to indicate habitat, land cover and anthropogenic threats, and using sophisticated GIS spatial models to produce predictive maps of the global distribution of cheetah and wild dog.
Godwin Eliamani Soye
Eliamani was our assistant GIS Analyst. Like Alex, Eliamani was based at the Carnivore Centre in Arusha, Tanzania. Eliamani started with us in 2007 and left Nov 2009. His duties and responsibilities include updating and maintaining the project database, and preparing and updating the species distribution maps for Tanzania. Eliamani is now working with Arumeru District Council as GIS Analyst.
Wilson Kibasa
Wilson was one of our volunteers,working with the field team to collect data on mammal distribution and relative abundance across Tanzania. Wilson left carnivore centre in Seprember 2009 to join University of Dar es Salaam for BSc. Wildlife Science and Conservation.