Dalia Amor Conde, 2005 Women of Discovery Field Research Award

"Never give up! As Malcolm X said: "There is no better adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance."" — Dalia Amor Conde

Biologist

Born: 1974-01-01

Hometown: Mexico City

Education: PhD, Landscape Ecology. Biology and Conservation Economics

Achievements

Discoveries: The dynamics of deforestation in the Mayan jungle. Used global position system to analyze effects of deforestation on jaguar populations and habitats, studying eco-systems in the Mayan forests of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico.

Expeditions: To Mexican volcanoes, jungle, desert and islands; Mayan forests of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico; Melgat tiger reserve in India; expeditions to Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, South Africa and Mozambique.

Biography

Dalia Amor Conde has focused her work on the Mayan forest of the Yucatan Peninsula, one of the most threatened ecosystems in the Americas. Deforestation has had an alarming impact on animal species and Dalia believes that information about the animals still living in the forest will be essential for the long-term establishment of conservation strategies. Dalia spent a summer analyzing satellite images of the area in order to quantify forest loss over the last 30 years. Additionally, she worked on building a database for human/elephant conflicts in southern Africa, and she took part in an expedition to the Dry Tortugas to study the possible effects of global warming on the local population of sooty terns. She is a PhD student in landscape ecology at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University (as of 2004). Since 1999, she has been working with the Mexican nonprofit organization Unidos Para la Conservacion (UPC) to develop sustainable and productive projects with the forestry communities in the region.

Fun Facts

Favorite Item to have in the field: Binoculars

Heroes: Darwin