5 Women Defending the Wild

Mai Fahmy

Through her research, Fahmy has been able to sequence the residual DNA in leech blood meals as an efficient means of surveying vertebrate fauna. Mai's work aims to inform conservation management in some of the world's most imperiled rainforests while also expanding our understanding of leeches themselves as understudied organisms. A paramount goal of her career is to support underrepresented students in her efforts to conserve wildlife and understand how our species impacts the natural world.

Mai Fahmy

A curious Eulemur rufifrons outside Centre ValBio Research Station in Ranomafana, Madagascar.

Mai Fahmy

Resting Lemur catta at Anja Community Reserve, Madagascar.

Cayte Bosler

Cayte Bosler is an investigative environmental journalist and a sustainability scientist with a master’s of science from Columbia University. She uses investigative journalism to document links between human development and ecological abuse.

Cayte Bosler

Throughout her career, Bosler has researched ecology and wildlife in the Bolivian Amazon and Cuba; trekked to an extreme altitude ecosystem in the Peruvian Andes, and boated through the mangrove-filled estuaries of Guatemala — all to chronicle solutions to protect wilderness.

Dr. Julie Kunen

Dr. Julie Kunen is an expert on food, culture, and the environment. Her work is dedicated to increasing sustainability in food systems–and to eating deliciously. As an anthropologist, she has worked in international development and biodiversity conservation for 15 years. Most recently, she was the Vice President for the Americas at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a non-profit dedicated to saving wildlife and wild places.

Dr. Julie Kunen

Dr. Kunen in the Andes mountains.

Dr. Julie Kunen

Dr. Kunen with an albatross colony.

Dr. Meg Lowman

Over the past 40 years, Dr. Meg Lowman's work in forest canopy science involved groundbreaking work in 46 countries and all seven continents; co-chaired 5 international canopy conferences; and authored over 150 scientific publications and 9 books on forest science and sustainability. She actively pursues bottom-up conservation activities including community initiatives for schools, corporations, and teams to manage local resources more sustainably: climate change advisor to the Florida cabinet, local tree planting programs in multiple countries, science book distribution to African and Amazonian school kids, and citizen science activities for communities.

Dr. Meg Lowman

"What causes me to leap out of bed each morning is the opportunity to explore, research, and conserve global forests; mentor the next generation (especially women and minorities) in sustainability and forest stewardship; and educate diverse audiences through storytelling." -Dr. Lowman

Dr. Meg Lowman

"Canopy Meg" in the treetops of Belize.

Dr. Paige West

Paige West, an endowed professor of anthropology, has worked with Indigenous peoples in Melanesia since the 1990s to understand their biodiversity-focused traditions and to help them conserve their cultures, languages, and environments. She is the author and editor of numerous books and the co-founder of two conservation-focused NGOs.

Dr. Paige West

Dr. West’s broad scholarly interest is in the relationship between societies and their environments. More specifically, she has written about the linkages between environmental conservation and international development, the material and symbolic ways in which the natural world is understood by Indigenous peoples and natural scientists, the aesthetics and poetics of human social relations with nature, and the creation of commodities and practices of consumption. Her current research is focused on sea level rise, managed retreat, and the question of how people forge new lives in the face of climatic change.