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. He received a DPhil in zoology from the University of Oxford. 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. Iain 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 at the suggestion of Felix Appelbe 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, and the 7th World Wilderness Congress. In 2012, Dr. Douglas-Hamilton spoke before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Ivory and Insecurity: The Global Implications of Poaching in Africa. In 2013, Iain’s high level meeting at the White House was followed by both the Obama Executive Order, and the Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to action to Stop the Killing, Stop the Trafficking and Stop the Demand for ivory. Additionally, Iain has spoken at Universities, Zoological Societies, Embassies and private fundraising functions throughout Europe and America. 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 the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2015. Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton was named the recipient of the 2010 Indianapolis Prize, one of the world’s leading awards for animal conservation. In recognition for his lifetime achievements, he received the Lilly Medal at a gala ceremony presented by Cummins Inc., at The Westin Hotel in Indianapolis.

Frank Pope is CEO of Save The Elephants. He joined Save The Elephants as COO in 2012 at the height of the poaching crisis. An experienced bush pilot, Pope is at the helm of an organisation renowned for using the power of science to secure a future for elephants. A passionate communicator, after many years in marine science and conservation Pope became the world’s first Ocean Correspondent, at The Times newspaper in London. During this time he published two acclaimed books and fronted the BBC series Britain’s Secret Seas. Pope is now working with Save the Elephants’ world-leading team of scientists and conservationists to reveal the intricate and complex world of elephants and to forge innovative solutions to their protection.

Wainaina Kimani is the longest serving member of Save The Elephants being with the organisation since its inception. He has held many roles including Chief Finance Officer. In 2017, he took over from Frank Pope as the new Chief Operations Officer.

Dr. Chris Thouless has nearly 30 years of experience working for governments, NGOs and private sector in Africa and Asia. He is a specialist in wildlife conservation, community-based natural resource management, project management, protected area planning and management, public private partnerships and tourism development. He has a particular interest in elephant conservation, having worked on elephant movement patterns, human wildlife conflict and elephant surveys in several countries. He was Chairman of CITES Panel of Experts on the African Elephant in 1996 and has been a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission since 1986. He was lead author of the African Elephant Status Report (2016). Chris has held a number of senior positions, including coordinator of the reconstruction of the Nairobi National Museum, director of Millenium Challenge Corporation investments in community conservation in Namibia, senior wildlife biologist for the Kalahari in Botswana, chief advisor on sustainable tourism to the government of Namibia and deputy director of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, a leading private sector conservation organisation in Kenya. Chris holds an MA in zoology from the University of Oxford, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal in 1991.

Festus joined Save the Elephants research team in 2005 with a special interest in elephant habitat interactions. He studied the impacts of elephants on the woody plant community along the Ewaso River and observed selective utilization of their bark by elephants. He then joined the team with skills in GIS which opened up a dual role as a GIS analyst.He is also involved in the participatory Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) program where he team leads the harmonization of mortality records. His interests lie in understanding the drivers, spatial and temporal dynamics of poaching across the African elephant range; the subject of his doctoral thesis at the University of Twente, Netherlands. His full profile and publications can be seen here.

Lesley is the Administrative Assistant to the Founder & President. She is responsible for organizing and updating the   Founder & President’s diary and schedule on a daily basis and the organization of all activities, events, meetings and communications on the Founder & President’s behalf. She is also responsible for organizing all international fund-raising trips and events for theFounder & President, ensuring all travel requirements are booked and planned well in advance. Lesley’s management skills include 10 years of business management experience. In addition she has experience in human resource and her expertise includes employee relations management, recruitment, hiring, policies and organizational development.

David is Head of Field Operations, and has worked for STE for almost two decades now. He has been featured in several films and documentaries (BBC, Nat Geo, etc) and in addition has been quoted severally on the local media houses on wildlife related matters. A Diploma holder in wildlife management, David has been head of Long Term Monitoring program (LTM) and can individually identify about 500 Samburu elephants on sight – a very unique talent. Besides monitoring elephants, he has also participated in over 100 radio collaring operation. Due to the recent surge in poaching, David has been involved in planning and organizing several community meetings, aimed at combating the scourge on ground level and acts as link between the project, communities and the local authority. At the same time, David has been fortunate enough to represent STE during fundraising and awareness events in the US and in China respectively and has good relations with Chinese goodwill ambassadors such as Yao Ming and Li Bingbing.

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, leading further research into the use of bees as an elephant deterrent both in Kenya and further afield.

Pooja comes to us with 14 years of fundraising experience at organisations in the US and Australia. However, her first passion has always been the protection of wildlife. She has a Bachelors in Zoology from Ohio Wesleyan University and a Masters in Wildlife Conservation from Macquarie University. Pooja has travelled extensively around the world and sought out volunteer opportunities at various wildlife rescue and conservation organisations. This includes stints at the Elephant Valley Project in Cambodia and Elephant Conservation Centre in Laos. So it seems like no accident that she found her way to Nairobi to join us at STE. In her own words, Pooja feels like she has been prepping for this role her entire life and is thrilled at the opportunity to contribute to STE’s important mission.

Mercy joined STE in November 2017 as an intern and later earned the role of Junior Accountant which she held until December 2020. In 2021 she was promoted to Assistant Accountant. Her main role in STE is working with the Elephants and Bees Project accounts as well as assisting the Accountant in various accounting and administrative duties.

Mercy has a Post Graduate Diploma in Tax Administration from JKUAT, a Bachelor of Commerce ( Accounting option) degree from Kenyatta University, and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) finalist.  She is currently (2021) pursuing her Certified Investment and Financial Analyst (CIFA) course offered by Kasneb.

Maureen is the Elephant and Bees 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.

Dr Lydia Tiller is the Elephant and Bees 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.

Naiya joined the Elephants and Bees 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.

Michael is a research assistant, GIS. He is involved mainly on elephant tracking and mapping around the bee-hive fenced farms on the Tsavo Ecosystem. He joined STE in January 2015, after undergoing an internship in our Elephant and Bees project in Sagalla, Tsavo. Michael has Bachelors in Geography, Moi University and has pursued Msc. GIS and Remote Sensing from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. He has previously worked as a GIS project officer at Flametree Systems Engineering Ltd, in Nairobi and later as a GIS consultant at International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) East Africa. At ILRI, he was involved in building up a Geodatabase of biophysical, livelihood and economic variables meant for National Climate Change Action Plan. Michael is keen on applying remote sensing and other geospatial techniques to understand the spatial relationships, interactions and patterns within the wildlife ranges.

Consolata joined Save the Elephants in March 2015 as an intern in the department of Conservation education. She is mainly involved in conducting conservation lessons in schools that lie within elephant corridors in Samburu and Isiolo Counties. She is also involved in mentorship and tuition programs for STE/EWS scholarship students, as well as, communicating with the education donors. She holds a First Class degree in Environmental Science from Egerton University. She is also registered an Associate expert in Environment Impact Assessment/Audit, by the National Environment Management Authority.

Daud began work at STE three years ago as an intern. He assisted Resson in her education visits to local schools as well as helping with LTM and mammal census. After several months Daud became a permanent staff member, leading mammal surveys in order to keep track of the populations of different species in Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves. In addition he visits schools to teach and show video footage of wildlife to encourage children and the community to support conservation.

Rose Lempate is the newest member to join the Education team. After finishing her primary school education, Rose was among the lucky students to secure the Save the Elephants scholarship opportunity. This gave her a chance to continue with her post primary school education which at that time seemed almost impossible. Rose later joined Limuru Girls’ School for her secondary school education and attained a B plain grade in the KCSE National exams. In 2011, she joined Kenyatta University for her Undergraduate degree and pursued a Bachelor of Science Degree in Environmental Education and graduated with a Second Class Honors (Upper Division). In 2017, Save the Elephants managed to secure a place for Rose at Giraffe center where she interned for five months and was able to learn some techniques in the art of briquette making and was also able to develop good communication skills and got a chance to interact with the many people she met there.

I am currently working with Save the Elephants as an Assistant Education Officer. This opportunity is special to me for it gives me a chance to give back to the same organization which supported me to make a new start in life through education and also to serve the community at large in an effort to encourage them to conserve the environment and work hand in hand with STE in order to secure a future for elephants. The Conservation Education Curriculum and the Mobile Education Unit activities that we are mostly involved in in the field; gives the young generation a chance to attain knowledge and awareness about the elephants and the current state of the environment, equip them with the necessary skills to solve environmental problems, help them develop a positive attitude towards the environment and encourage them to participate in activities that will bring a desireable impact to the environment.  

Gilbert is the Camp Manager at Save the Elephants. He provides direction and logistical support for all field staff in Samburu, while undertaking roles in finance management, administration and database updating. He also hosts and guides interns and visiting researchers, ensuring all their needs are met. His skills as a GIS technician serve him in monitoring elephant movement via STE’s cutting-edge tracking system viewed on Google Earth. He has participated Esri East Africa User Conference and numerous international conferences on Biodiversity, land use and climate change in Nairobi, and the African GIS Google outreach launch in Uganda. Gilbert previously worked with the Kenya Wildlife Service as Rhino research assistant. In 2013, he was nominated for the Project Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation, which he undertook in Washington DC.

Chris Leadismo, our Head of Wildlife Security, works in tough conditions in Northern Kenya. When he’s not on patrol deep in the bush looking for elephant carcasses or poachers, he’s out among the local Samburu community helping keep peace in what can sometimes be a volatile landscape and coordinating on the ground security between our five different law enforcement partners. For the past  14 years, he has devoted himself to protecting elephants in Northern Kenya often spending months away from his family conducting missions where his life is at stake. front-line witness to the scale of the poaching onslaught that hit northern Kenya from 2009, Chris gathers critical information from elephant crime scenes, and trains others to do the same. Chris was a finalist in the African Ranger Award and in 2017, delivered an effective speech to the Hong Kong legislative council on behalf of STE and rangers across Africa. His heartfelt testimony and words of wisdom were powerful and four months later, in January of 2018, Hong Kong followed China’s lead by declaring their intention to ban their domestic ivory trade. Samburu, Chris describes his job as “my life, not my livelihood”.

“For generations, the Samburu have loved and respected the elephants that we live among. That is why it’s natural for me to devote my life to defending them.” – Chris Leadismo

David Letitiya is from Ngurunit in northern Kenya. He began work as a research assistant with Save the Elephants in October of 2014. He is part of the long-term monitoring team, and can therefore differentiate approximately 500 elephants on sight. In addition to collecting daily demographic data in the field, David assists with dung collection for the orphan project, helps with collaring operations, and enters all collected data into the long-term database for future analyses. He is also the all-purpose guy in camp, always ready to jump up and do anything that is needed; he can often be found transporting park rangers, helping in emergency situations, and supporting general camp operations. David earned his diploma in wildlife management from the Kenya Wildlife Training Institute in Naivasha, Kenya in 2011. Save the Elephants is his first place of work, and he is appreciative and honored to be a part of the team.

Stanley began work in the research camp as a chef in July of 2015. Prior to working with Save the Elephants, he was a chef at Riverside Camp for five years. This experience has made him an excellent cook, to the joy of everyone living in camp, who welcomed him with open arms. Stanley enjoys a good joke and has a bright smile that lights up the kitchen. He is originally from Machakos, Kenya.