Faculty
Alfonso Alonso, Ph.D.
Director of Conservation and Development
Alfonso has always been fascinated by the way nature works and passionate about trying to understand it. Through his research as a biologist, however, he soon learned about the pressures humans exert on nature and decided to work to preserve it. "Biologists love nature," he explains, "so I have to be involved in protecting what I love." At MAB, Alfonso does everything from planning project budgets to writing and reviewing scientific papers and educational materials on biodiversity assessment and monitoring to developing and carrying out strategies and designs for vegetation and invertebrate sampling protocols. He manages MAB's international research programs in conservation and development.
Janine L. Brown, Ph.D.
Reproductive Physiologist
Janine Brown has conducted research to better understand the reproductive biology of endangered wildlife for more than 15 years. She joined the National Zoo in 1991 to develop an independent research/training program at the Conservation and Research Center (CRC). She now manages fellows, students, technicians and volunteers who study the reproductive biology of both domesticated and wild animals.
Jennifer Buff
Education Program Manager
Jennifer Buff is the education program manager for the Zoo's Conservation and Research Center. She came to the National Zoo in 1992 as a biological technician, working in the Department of Reproductive Sciences Gamete Laboratory and coordinating logistics for teams of reproductive scientists, geneticists, and other wildlife professionals around the world to conduct research and offer training courses. The capstone for CRC education programs is an innovative school-scientist partnership initiative, the Biodiversity Monitoring Projects, which is designed to provide teachers with the skills and tools needed to teach the scientific principles of biodiversity monitoring using their school grounds, parkland, or other natural areas as a living ecosystem laboratory.
Francisco Dallmeier, Ph.D.
Head Center for Conservation Education and Sustainability
Francisco Dallmeier was born in Caracas, Venezuela, where at an early age he discovered a life-long passion for living creatures. His interest in biology carried him from extensive fieldwork with the Institute of Tropical Zoology in Venezuela to the Smithsonian’s Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program (MAB). Since 1986, he has directed this program’s evolution and tremendous growth. Now consisting of a network of more than 300 research plots throughout North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the MAB Program combines research, training, and public education and outreach to forge a powerful tool for the conservation of biodiversity around the world.
Elizabeth Freeman, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Elizabeth Freeman is a behavioral ecologist who has been working in the Department of Reproductive Sciences at the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center since 2000. She uses a multidisciplinary approach,involving animal behavior, endocrinology, and chemical communication (pheromones) research, to understand the biotic and abiotic factors that reproduction in mammals such as elephants and rhinos. Elizabeth enjoys educating people about endangered species through lectures, outreach programs and hands-on research experiences. She earned her Ph.D. from George Mason University, M.S. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, and B.S. from Vanderbilt University.
Peter Leimgruber, Ph.D.
Conservation GIS Lab Director
Peter Leimgruber's research focuses on the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and satellite tracking techniques to the conservation and management of endangered charismatic fauna. At NZP, Peter directs the Conservation GIS Lab in Front Royal.
William J. McShea, Ph.D.
Ecologist
Bill McShea is an ecologist who has been working at the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center for 17 years on wildlife management and conservation. His research involves forest ecology issues on public lands in the eastern U.S. and conservation issues in developing countries. Bill is interested in providing knowledge that helps solve human/animal conflicts and conserves biodiversity.
Steven L. Monfort, PhD. DVM
Associate Director for Conservation and Science
Steven Monfort has conducted his research for more than 20 years while at the Zoological Society of San Diego, the University of California, Davis, and the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and its Conservation and Research Center (CRC). He initiates and conducts research projects in the broad discipline of reproductive physiology and endocrinology, and he provides clinical veterinary care for animals housed at CRC. Monfort co-coordinates one of the world’s largest and most productive wildlife endocrinology laboratories, with basic and applied research aimed at helping to conserve rare species. He also has experience in using semen collection, cryopreservation, artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization to augment ex situ breeding.
Don Moore
Associate Director for Animal Care
Don Moore is an animal behaviorist, zoo-based wildlife biologist, and educator who has helped to renovate and manage zoos in Olmsted Parks and create conservation management plans for wild animals in nature for more than 30 years. Moore has published more than four dozen papers or manuals on animal husbandry and behavior, serves as a peer-reviewer for scientific journals including Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science (JAAWS), and has written and edited popular science and history literature for children.
Budhan Pukazhenthi, DVM, Ph.D.
Gamete Biologist
Budhan Pukazhenthi has a diverse clinical and research background. After training and practicing as a clinical veterinarian in India, Pukazhenthi obtained research training in biochemistry, cell biology and molecular biology at the University of Maryland. He joined the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and its Conservation & Research Center in 1992 to pursue a Ph.D.
Miles Roberts
Research Scientist
Miles is the deputy Head of the Department of Conservation Biology at the National Zoological Park. In that capacity, he facilitates the programs of the Department’s eight senior research staff and more than 30 postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and research associates and manages its federal and grant budget programs totaling more than $1,500,000. He also conducts research on the behavioral ecology of mammals, oversees the science outreach programs of the Amazonia Science Gallery, and has served as academic supervisor for over 40 science magnet high-school students, interns, undergraduate and graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows.
Scott Sillett, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Scott studies how events throughout the annual cycle of migratory birds are interconnected and how multiple mechanisms, both natural and human-related, operate to limit and regulate these bird populations. He has a Ph.D. in Biology from Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.
Jennifer Sevin
Education and Training Coordinator
Jennifer feels that it is important to not only conduct research, but to educate resource managers and resource users on the information gained from that research. She believes knowledge gives us power to make informed decisions. Jennifer is able to combine her two interests of education and science in her current position. Jennifer has worked with many local, national and international groups on environmental education and training efforts. Her research interests focus on bears and salamanders. She has a B.S. from Florida International University in Environmental Studies and an M.S. in Zoology from North Carolina State University. She is currently working on her Ph.D. at George Mason University.
David E. Wildt, Ph.D.
Head and Senior Scientist Center for Species Survival
David Wildt has carried out multidisciplinary research for 30 years while at Michigan State University, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas A&M University, the National Institutes of Health and now the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and its Conservation and Research Center. He leads a group of scientists, fellows, students, technicians and volunteers who study the reproductive biology of animals, from fish to elephants.
Peter Balint, PhD.
Assistant professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs.
Peter Balint teaches courses on environmental policy and on research methods and data analysis. He currently has two main areas of research. One focuses on community-based conservation in eastern and southern Africa, with recent papers looking specifically at Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE program. The second addresses the management of so-called 'wicked' environmental problems. Wicked problems refer to policy dilemmas in which multiple and compounding risks and uncertainties combine with sharply divergent public values to generate contentious political stalemates. In particular, he and several colleagues have examined the US Forest Service’s ongoing struggle to develop a broadly acceptable management plan for the Sierra Nevada national forests of California. More information and links to publications are available at http://classweb.gmu.edu/pbalint/Bio.htm.
Megan Draheim
PhD Student in Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University
Megan Draheim received her MS in 2007. Her research focuses on human-wildlife conflict and human-wildlife interactions from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Al B. Fuertes, Ph.D.
Conflict Resolution
Dr. Fuertes specializes in community-based trauma healing as an integral component in peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He travels extensively around the world, particularly in places affected by war, armed conflict, and natural disasters. Al works with government, religious, military and community leaders as well as NGO development workers, school administrators, teachers, youth, refugees and internally displaced persons. Al's other fields of expertise include: facilitation and dialogue (multicultural perspectives), refugee and internal displacement issues, faith and spirituality (interfaith, ecumenism and religious pluralism), conflict resolution and transformation, intermediary roles and practice (multicultural setting), and theology of struggle/people's theology/liberation theology.
Michael R. Gabel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Mathematics and Integrative Studies.
Dr. Gabel received a Bachelor of Science degree Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Brandeis University. Professor Gabel was a member of the faculty group that created GMU's award-winning interdisciplinary PAGE (Plan for Alternative General Education) Program and is currently teaching in the University's innovative New Century College. He has been Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Chair of the CAS Committee on Innovative Education, Chair of the University-wide Academic Computing Advisory Committee, Chair of the Faculty Senate Standing Committee on Effective Teaching, Co-Chair of the President's Project Team on Learning Initiatives, and Director of the University's Instructional Development Office. He has given numerous lectures and presentations on Mathematics, General Education, and the Applications of Technology to Teaching. He is a member of the Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars and is a 2002 recipient of a GMU Teaching Excellence Award as well as the 2002 David J. King Faculty Teaching Award.
In addition to a wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses in the Mathematics Department, he has taught a Quantitative Problem Solving course in the Honors Program, Honor's Calculus, and the learning communities Community of Learners, The Natural World, Mathematics and Culture, Conservation Studies, and The Nature of Mathematics in New Century College.
His interests include computers and the "natural world." He has also traveled extensively in West, North, Southern, and East Africa as well as in Europe, Central/South America, India, the Himalayas and, particularly, Southeast Asia.
R. Christian Jones, PhD.
Director of the Mason Center for Conservation Studies
Dr. R. Chris Jones, Chair of the Environmental Science and Policy Department is a freshwater ecologist whose research foci include tidal freshwater ecosystems (emphasizing plankton and macrophytes), stream ecology (emphasizing benthic macroinvertebrates), and watershed management. Dr. Jones teaches courses in waterscape ecology, freshwater ecology, and multivariate analysis. He has been a faculty member at Mason since 1980.
Anne Marchant, PhD.
Associate Director of the Mason Center for Conservation Studies
Anne Marchant, Ph.D. is Associate Director of the Mason Center for Conservation Studies and Professor in the Department of Applied Information Technology, George Mason University. Her interests include applications of technology to conservation research, grid computing to support the sciences, computer forensics, conservation forensics and globalization. She is also interested in teaching methodology and in helping students develop writing and communication skills. She was a recipient of the George Mason University Excellence in Teaching Award in 1999. She has a BA from the University of New Hampshire and a MA and PhD from UC Berkeley.
Chris Parsons, PhD.
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy Deputy Director, MCCS
Research Associate at the University Marine Biological Station, Millport
Research Associate at the University Marine Biological Station, Millport
Dr Parsons has been involved in whale and dolphin research for over a decade and has conducted projects in South Africa, India, China and the Caribbean as well as the UK. He is currently involved in research projects on coastal dolphin populations in the Dominican Republic, and a new project based in Pakistan. Before moving to the US, Dr Parsons was the Director of the Research and Education Departments of the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT), from 1998 until 2003. Prior to this, he was involved in research on Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and finless porpoises in Hong Kong and China, which involved studies on the behaviour and ecology of Hong Kong's cetaceans, marine pollution and its effects on marine life.
An acknowledged international expert on cetaceans, Dr. Parsons has been a member of the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission since 1999 and a board member of the Society for Conservation Biology's Marine Section since 2006. He was awarded a Fellowship by the Royal Geographical Society in 1997, won a Scottish Thistle Award in 2000 for his work in Environmental Tourism, and was acknowledged a young achiever in Scotland for his achievements in cetacean conservation by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1999. In addition, Dr. Parsons has published over 80 scientific papers and reports. He earned his PhD in 1997 from the University of Hong Kong, and has a BA and MA from Oxford University (St Peter’s College - matriculated 1988). View more at http://www.marinepolicy.net/cparsons/
Sylvia Vitazkova, Ph.D.
Deputy Director, Mason Center for Conservation Studies
Sylvia K. Vitazkova earned a PhD in Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology from Columbia University, where she also completed a certificate in International Environmental Policy. Her BA in Neurobiology and Behavior is from Cornell University. Sylvia's professional experience includes field research in Ecuador, Venezuela, Belize and Mexico and laboratory research at Harvard Medical School and the New York State School of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. In addition, she participated in the Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellowship at the National Academy of Sciences in 2001. Sylvia spearheaded the development and implementation of a new Master of Marine and Environmental Science degree program at the University of the Virgin Islands between 2006 and 2008. She returned to the Washington, D.C. area in January 2009 to take a position as Assistant Professor of Conservation Studies and Director of the Zoo and Aquarium Leadership Masters program at George Mason University. Sylvia was appointed Deputy Director of the Mason Center for Conservation Studies in June 2009. Her current research focus is on disease transmission between humans, domestic animals, and wildlife, with a specific focus on wild Black Howler Monkeys, /Alouatta pigra/, in Belize.