| What do you do ?
I’m in charge of the Conservation Training Consortium (CTC), which includes The Field Museum, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Shedd Aquarium, and Brookfield Zoo. The consortium trains conservation professionals from developing countries, giving them a theoretical framework on which to base their conservation recommendations, decisions and programs.
I’m a behavioral ecologist and conservation biologist. I’ve conducted research on habitat fragmentation and the breeding ecology of birds in Kenya and I’m interested in exploring multidisciplinary approaches to the conservation of biological diversity.
 How did you become interested in your field?
I started doing research on bird behavior with a professor while I was an undergraduate and got very interested in the theoretical side of ecology. Through my experiences in Kenya and other developing countries I became much more interested in issue-driven questions regarding the environment. So, not science for science’s sake, but how we can use science to better manage the environment, find a more harmonious balance between people and conservation.
I’m not one of these people who since age four knew I was going to be a scientist or an ecologist. My career path has been evolving over the whole course of my life.
What do you love about what you do?
I think my work really will make a difference on a small scale. I’ve put a lot of effort into identifying key people in developing countries who are going to be able to influence policies, lead conservation efforts, and educate the next generation of adults. I can see the results of what I’m doing, and I can see that what I do will also have a multiplier effect--these people will go home and train their colleagues, who will train their colleagues, and eventually we’ll be able to see a difference. It is a satisfying job.
Has being a woman made a difference in your career?
I’m not sure I would be doing this if I were a man. What I do is geared toward enabling others and seeing how I can pave the way for others, rather than just pursuing my own research. I certainly don’t want to over-generalize, but I sometimes get the sense that women are more inclined to do that than men are.
I’m not sure I’ve experienced any overt obstacles. I think I’ve faced the same subtle ones that probably women everywhere have encountered.
Do you see gender differences when it comes to actually doing science?
Well, I think the "male" approach to science is to prove yourself right and to prove others wrong, to advance your own ideas and make a name for yourself as a scientist. But with issue-driven science like conservation, that is simply not going to work.
What we need to do is come up with an approach that works pretty well, even if it’s not perfect, and even though it may involve not just our own ideas but other people’s as well. We need to come up with the best holistic answer. Certainly there are men who will take that approach and there are women who will take the traditional prove-yourself-right approach, but I think in general women are more likely to work toward building a consensus than men are.
What other gender issues do you see within the scientific community?
The National Science Foundation, the main funding body for scientists in the U.S., has developed programs to try to encourage women to go into science. But what they’re doing is trying to lure women into fields that are typically dominated by men—engineering, chemistry, physics. And yes, one reason why there aren’t more women in these fields is because they’re discouraged from going into them. But a second reason is that they don’t want to go into them.
Maybe the NSF ought to try another approach: Create more programs that speak to what women are interested in, the kinds of approaches women take. And they haven’t done that and that I see as being a real issue. Certainly girls are discouraged from excelling in math and related subjects, but I also think we may be interested in approaching problems from a different perspective and that’s been ignored.
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