Dr Lucy King was brought up in Somalia, Lesotho and Kenya. She has been researching the use of honey bees as a natural deterrent for crop-raiding elephants since 2006 and has published her findings in numerous scientific journals. Her DPhil thesis, through Oxford University and in partnership with Save the Elephants and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, was awarded the UNEP/CMS Thesis Award 2011 from the United Nations Environment Program’s Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species. She won The Future for Nature Award and The St Andrews Prize for the Environment in 2013. She is actively involved in the Kenyan Elephant Forum (KEF) and in 2013 she was invited to join IUCN’s African Elephant Specialist Group. Previously she completed an MSc in Biology, Integrative Bioscience, from Balliol College, Oxford (2006) and gained a First Class degree in Zoology from Bristol University (1999). Between 2000 and 2005, she led numerous conservation projects and adventurous expeditions to Africa and South America in her role as Operations Director for Quest Overseas. She now lives in Nairobi with her partner and is Head of the Human-Elephant Co-Existence Program for Save the Elephants. Email: lucy@savetheelephants.org

Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton, CBE, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the African elephant. Dr Douglas-Hamilton pioneered the first in-depth scientific study of elephant social behaviour in Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National Park at age 23 receiving a DPhil in Zoology from Oxford University for his work. During the 1970s he investigated the status of elephants throughout Africa and was the first to alert the world to the ivory poaching holocaust. He chronicled how Africa’s elephant population was halved between 1979 and 1989 and helped bring about the world ivory trade ban.
 Dr Douglas-Hamilton and his wife Oria have co-authored two award-winning books, “Among the Elephants” and “Battle for the Elephants” and have made numerous television films. He founded Save the Elephants in 1993 in order to create an effective and flexible NGO dedicated specifically to elephants.

He serves on the data review task force of the African Elephant Specialist Group of IUCN, and the Technical Advisory Group for MIKE. He also conducts regular lecture tours and works with the media to promote STE’s mission and awareness of elephants in general. Over the last few years Iain has spoken at numerous conferences including the Wildlife Conservation Network, the 7th World Wilderness Congress, the International Elephant and Rhino Research Symposium in Vienna, the CIWF Animal Sentience Conference 2005, and was the keynote speaker at the International Elephant Foundation conference on ‘Human-elephant relationships and conflict’ in Sri Lanka. His chief research interest is to understand elephant choices by studying their movements. For his work on elephants, he was awarded one of conservation’s highest awards the Order of the Golden Ark in 1988 and was named the recipient of the 2010 Indianapolis Prize, one of the world’s leading awards for animal conservation. In the 2015 honours list he was awarded CBE (Commander of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Prof. Fritz Vollrath, the Chairman of Save the Elephants, studied in Germany and obtained his PhD (with a thesis on spider behaviour) in 1977 from Freiburg University. He completed research fellowships and fieldwork with the Max Plank Institute in Seewiesen and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. After 9 years in Oxford as Royal Society Post-doctorate Research Fellow and University Research Associate, 5 years in Switzerland (Basel) as Associate Professor and 8 years in Denmark (Aarhus) as Professor of Zoology, he is now back at the University of Oxford as Visiting Research Professor in the Department of Zoology and Senior Research Associate of Balliol College.

Prof Vollrath’s research focuses on the evolution of spider web-building behaviour and on the extraordinary properties of the silk used to build the webs. His studies on the spider’s movements during web construction have led to analysis tools and novel insights into animal decision making. STE employs these findings at the other end of the scale of animal sizes while investigating elephant movements and decisions. Prof Vollrath has been an STE Trustee since the year 2002. In 2003 he became the new STE Chairman when Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton became President and CEO of the organisation. Together they published the first paper in 2002 on the use of African honeybees to prevent elephants from foraging on acacia trees.

Maureen is our Community Livelihoods and Education Manager. She is a trained Social Worker with an MA in Global Studies (Sociology and Political Science) from the University of Freiburg, Germany (2009 -2011). An MSc in Conservation and Rural Development from Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), University of Kent, United Kingdom (2017- 2018).

She joined the team in December 2018. She previously worked with the European Union’s Food Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (FNS&SA) project as a Junior Monitoring and Evaluation Expert, Brussel Office (2017) and Kenya Delegation (2015 – 2016). During her career in the agriculture sector, Maureen noticed that communities living near protected areas and in the Arid and Semi-Arid regions of Kenya are the worst hit by food insecurity due to drought coupled with human-wildlife conflict (HWC). This drove her to study further on how to improve community livelihoods and improve tolerance for different wildlife species.

For her MSc, Maureen investigated factors that drive tolerance towards damage causing elephants in Amboseli and the impact livelihood development projects have towards changing negative attitudes towards wildlife and improving tolerance. She plans to continue with this research and contribute towards an understanding of how attitudes can be improved for human-wildlife coexistence. Email: maureen@savetheelephants.org 

Dr Lydia Tiller is our Research and Science Manager who coordinates our field research and data collection. She helps to supervise student projects, interns and staff in the field. Lydia is taking a lead on our collared elephant project, hoping to gain a better understanding of elephant movement and elephant crop raiding behaviour across the Tsavo ecosystem. Lydia is also an editor for the journal ‘Pachyderm’ which is a specialist journal about elephants and rhinos.

Lydia joined our team in January 2018 after completing her PhD at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent. Her research looked at how land-use change in the Trans Mara district in Kenya is driving human-elephant conflict and elephant movement. Prior to conducting her PhD, Lydia worked in Thailand, studying elephant cognition, and also worked on a seabird project in Oregon. She completed her MSc in Wild Animal Biology from the Royal Veterinary College and Zoological Society of London. For her MSc project, Lydia investigated the use of unpalatable crops as a mitigation method to deter crop raiding wildlife.

Email: lydia@savetheelephants.org

Naiya joined the team in September 2018 in the position of Mobile Unit Education and Outreach Manager after a successful internship in August 2014 and working as our camp coordinator in September 2017 – April 2018. She has a BA in Geography from the University of Durham, UK (2015) and a MSc in Environment, Politics and Development at SOAS, the University of London (2018). She is very passionate about working with communities in conservation and development issues and hopes to use photography and filmmaking to create educational content and training resources for farmers experiencing HEC, spread awareness for existing coexistence strategies.

Naiya is motivated to use visual storytelling to help raise awareness for under-represented communities and conservation stories. She has long-term goals of helping building resilience and capacity at other conflict sites and spreading awareness for beehive fences as a mitigation tool within the HEC toolbox.

Email: naiya@savetheelephants.org 

Ewan joined us in early 2018 as the Project Logistician – coordinating
the research camp and heading the Elephants and Bees Mobile Unit. He completed his MSc in Wildlife Conservation from University College London in 2015 following a BSc in Zoology from the University of Manchester. Research projects took him to the forests of Ecuador and northeastern China to study
biodiversity and human-wildlife interactions.

After graduating he went on to work seasonally in Scottish Wildcat conservation, close to family he has in the North of the country. Drawn to the more exciting and promising prospects for nature conservation, he undertook two internships in 2017; first researching with the Cape Leopard Trust in South Africa and then at the Elephants and Bees Project. After a brief visit home, he returned as a full-time member of the team. Email: ewan@savetheelephants.org

Lisa is our Grants & Administration Officer. She has a BA Psychology from Kenyatta University (2012-2016) which contributed to her desire for working with programs and hence her interest for project management developed after taking part in different community-based projects as part of her school work and attachments. She has worked as Grants Assistant for International Rescue Committee, Somalia Programme where she was involved in the management of different allocated grants with a total portfolio of 10-12 million shillings. She was involved in managing sectors particularly in Health, Women Protection & Empowerment, Livelihoods and Water, Sanitation & Hygiene.

She joined the team in March 2019 where she is overseeing budgets and expenditures for the Elephants & bees Nairobi and Field office expenses and grant applications and following through the grant management requirements aside from everyday administration and communication work. Email: hec@savetheelephants.org

Hesron Nzumu is our Research Center Officer in Sagalla Community next to Tsavo East National Park. He began as a carpenter on the project in 2009 making KTBH beehives and helping us install the hives in our first trial Beehive Fences.

He became so passionate about the project that he was promoted to an official Field Assistant for the Sagalla project site in 2012. Although he still assists the other farmers with their Beehive Fence maintenance and honey harvesting, in 2014 Nzumu supervised the construction of the Elephants and Bees Research Center and is now in charge of coordinating activities at the centre and hosting all the workshops and meetings held in our Training Room.

Emmanuel Mwambingu is our Beehive Fence Officer in Kenya and oversees the data collection on our field site in Sagalla, collecting information about the beehive occupancy rates, elephant visits to the beehive fence protected farms and also helps to co-ordinate new beehive fence construction around the Sagalla communities. Originally an English Teacher by training, Emmanuel had now completed a Bee Products and Processing Course at Baraka College in Nakuru and is presently in charge of assisting interns and students with their individual projects at the Elephants and Bees Research Center next to Tsavo East National Park.

Esther Serem was our Beehive Fence Training and Database Officer. She was responsible for handling large sets of beehive fence, elephant tracking and crop-raiding assessment data. She also organised and trains visitors and farmers in our project site and in other areas she visited.

She started working with us in July 2016 after two successful internships in August 2015 and May-June 2016. She graduated in November 2016 from Karatina University with a BSc in Natural Resources (Wildlife Management option). She is very passionate and enthusiastic about wildlife conservation with love for community conservation and secured funding for her MSc in Wildlife Management at Newcastle University which started in September 2018.

When she comes back, she hopes to use her acquired skills in data analysis and modelling, GIS and remote sensing and understanding of policy to improve her data management role and to provide support to the rest of the scientific team. She is helping spread the word about Elephants and Bees project to other people in other areas around the world.

Gloria Mugo was the Tsavo project GIS officer mandated with managing GPS-tracking data from crop-raiding elephants within the community land, processing and analysis for mapping purposes. She trained interns and project officers on appropriate handling of GPS data to maintain data efficacy. She worked on developing useful vegetation maps for Taita-Taveta region, which will serve as key base map for various ongoing research aspects, and looks to capture her methods in a scientific report.

Gloria secured funding for her MSc course at the University of Southampton in Applied GIS and Remote Sensing for the study period (September 2018-2019). This opportunity has been of increasing value-boosting her knowledge and skill-base including; GIS ‘best practices’, applications in environmental management, analytical thinking, programming for remote sensing to create and work around problematic tools, and practical skills in remote sensing across an array of data products and software for different applications, up to and including extending her expertise into 3D-modelling.

This process has expanded her web of networks whilst working amongst peers and professionals in various stages of their academic and professional lives. These will be instrumental in facilitating and ensuring the continued success in managing human-elephant conflict with the local communities, as Elephants and Bees project reaches out to communities beyond their geographic scope, by improving on and advancing E&Bs geospatial systems, as well as creating more avenues for research. Email: gloria@savetheelephants.org

Dr Joseph Soltis is a Senior Scientists at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida and leads their bioacoustic laboratory. He teamed up with Dr King and The Elephants and Bees Project in 2008 to help explore elephant vocal responses to bees and other threats in their environment. As the research has developed and expanded, Dr Soltis has made annual visits to Kenya and continues to analyse data when back in Florida.

Victor is the Community Livelihood, Education and Conflict Reduction Officer. He holds a BSc. in Natural Resource Management from Egerton University. He is working on a number of projects within the Permaculture and Livelihood, Environmental Education and Human-Elephant Conflict Program. He ensures sustainable organic permaculture activities are implemented in the school garden such as pest management, the use of compost and livestock manures to help supplement  the soil. He trains students and visiting farmers on different sustainable dryland and organic farming methods. Additionally, he helps in implementing the growing of non-palatable crops such as sunflowers in beehive protected area, as well as supporting the Mlambeni basket weaving group. Victor also conducts environmental classes in Kileva Primary School as part of the Elephants and Bees Environmental Education program. Email: victor@savetheelephants.org

Kylie Butler has just completed her MPhil through the University of Newcastle, Australia. With Dr. Lucy King as field supervisor, Kylie established a beehive fence study site near Wasgamuwa National Park, Sri Lanka to scientifically evaluate the potential of using Asian honeybees as an Asian elephant crop-raiding deterrent.

Kylie was working in partnership with Save the Elephants, the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Peradeniya, to study elephant demographics, social behaviour and movement patterns in Wasgamuwa District, and investigate just how elephants are responding to the beehive fences.

Kylie’s passion for elephant conservation and research grew after her first visit to Africa in 2007, volunteering on a marine and terrestrial conservation project. Kylie then completed her Master of Environment, in partnership with Dr. Lucy King and Save the Elephants achieving a First Class Honours grade. Her research project was entitled ‘Social learning in African elephants: behavioural homogeneity of mothers and offspring in response to threats’.

In 2013, Kylie has spent a further field season at Dr. King’s beehive fence project site in Sagalla, Kenya learning about human-elephant conflict and the beehive fence deterrent tool. Back in Australia, Kylie was Committee Chair for the International March for Elephants, a peaceful protest held in over 35 cities worldwide to call for an end to the ivory trade. In 2012, Kylie worked as a Team Expedition Leader for Global Vision International’s Thai Elephant Forest Re-habitation project, looking at captive elephant welfare and social behaviour. Currently based in both Sri Lanka and Australia, Kylie spent three years completing her field research in Sri Lanka, and is excited about the opportunity around the potential role of beehive fencing in reducing human-elephant conflict in Asia, and thus helping conserve this majestic but endangered species.

Anne Powys was born and raised on Suyian Ranch in Laikipia, northern Kenya. An ethno botanist with considerable knowledge of the traditional uses of plants, she has a long and deep association with the resident pastoral communities of Kenya. She founded and runs The Suyian Trust and has spent over a decade teaching safari guides botanical courses all across East Africa focusing on the useful things about plants, especially the medicinal. With a grandfather as a forester and an upbringing filled with “plant safaris” it was hardly surprising that Anne would end up becoming devoted to the preservation of flora with special emphasis on the remaining indigenous forests of Northern Kenya. Anne is presently consulting with the Elephants and Bees Project to help us understand what dry and wet season indigenous plants our honey bees rely on for forage. With her help, we have established a tree nursery of bee fodder plants and also the first ever “Sagalla Herbarium” at the Research Center.

Derick Wanjala is the Elephants and Bees’ Beehive Fence Project Officer. His passion in conservation was nurtured when he completed an  industrial attachment in Tsavo west National park and the Chyulu Hills National Park in 2017, where he worked with the communities in conservation and management of wildlife. He graduated in November 2018 from University of Eldoret with a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Management.

Derick joined the team in August 2019 after a successful internship in February 2019. He is responsible for Beehive fence monitoring, elephant tracking, camera trapping and database management. He also trains the visitors and interns during fieldwork at the Elephants and Bees Research Centre in Sagalla. Email: derick@savetheelephants.org