Alexandra Zimmermann | |
---|---|
Academic background | |
Education | University of Leeds (BSc) Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (MSc) |
Alma mater | Oxford University (PhD) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Wildlife conservation |
Sub-discipline | Human-wildlife conflict resolution |
Institutions | Chester Zoo IUCN Oxford University (WildCRU) World Bank |
Alexandra Zimmermann is a conservation scientist specialising in conflict resolution in wildlife conservation based in Oxford, England, United Kingdom.[1][2] She is known for founding the IUCN Human-Wildlife Conflict Task Force[1][3][4] and is also a researcher at the University of Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU).[2] She is also a Senior Advisor for the World Bank's Global Wildlife Program.[2][3] She has published over 50 research papers.[5]
Raised internationally in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America, Zimmermann earned her Bachelor's degree in Zoology from the University of Leeds in 1997. She also earned a MSc in Conservation Biology from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology in 2000. She went on to earn a DPhil (PhD) in conservation social sciences from Oxford University in 2014, supervised by David Macdonald.[6]
Zimmermann has also studied at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, as well as multilateral negotiation at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.[2][3]
For 18 years, Zimmermann worked at Chester Zoo, where she directed research and field conservation projects at the zoo. Eventually, she became the Head of Conservation Science at Chester Zoo.[2][3][7][8] At Chester Zoo, Zimmermann led their human-wildlife conflict mitigation projects, for which she was awarded grants from the UK Government's Darwin Initiative five times beginning in 2007.[9][10] These included projects in Bolivia, Nepal, India, and Indonesia.[7][11][8]
Zimmermann chairs the IUCN SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict Task Force, which she had founded in 2016.[3][12][13] As part of the task force, she oversees the development of the IUCN SSC Guidelines on Human-Wildlife Conflict and the International Conference on Human-Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence.[12] Zimmermann also became a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy, along with several Species Survival Commission Specialist Groups.[2][3]
Later, Zimmermann became a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University's WildCRU.[2][14][15] While holding positions at both organizations, Zimmermann helped facilitate the partnership between Oxford University and Chester Zoo in 2018 for a portfolio of conservation projects, including one on Andean bears, which was funded through the Darwin Initiative and is still ongoing.[11][16]
Zimmermann is a Senior Advisor for the World Bank's Global Wildlife Program.[2][3] She is also Specialty Chief Editor of Frontiers in Conservation Science, an academic journal.[17] She has been interviewed several times by BBC News as a specialist on conservation and human-wildlife conflicts.[4][18][19][20]
In 2018, Zimmermann was also interviewed for an Al-Jazeera Earthrise documentary about human-wildlife conflict in Australia and Bangladesh.[21]
Zimmermann has written over 50 scholarly articles on conservation science.[5]