Marine Conservation Without Borders
Our Supporters
We are very fortunate to have support from the Past Global Fellows of the Duke University Marine Lab. Here are their profiles and you may contact them through our network.
Pablo Garcia Borboroglu
Duke Fellow 2001
Pablo (Popi) is the founder and President of the Global Penguin Society (GPS, www.globalpenguinsociety.org), an international science-based conservation coalition dedicated to the survival and protection of the world´s penguin species. He is a researcher at the National Research Council in Argentina and Professor at the University of Washington.
He has spent 25 years in the field of marine conservation and his research focuses on different ecological aspects of seabirds relevant for conservation, with special emphasis on penguins.
He also works on marine conservation tools planning and implementation. In this role, he interacts with Government agencies and other institutions. For example, he leads processes to help designate MPAs and coordinates participatory management Plans and helps authorities implement these plans. In addition, he has taken direct action in conservation issues such as oil pollution in the southwest Atlantic, which created large scale problems for seabirds.
With a strong recognition that improved stewardship of the ocean requires both science and communication to modify people’s attitudes and behavior, Borboroglu works extensively with international media. He has been a scientific advisor to Paramount Pictures, the Swedish and German National Television Channels, Tokyo Broadcasting System and Irish International Press, among others.
Shaleyla Kelez
Duke Fellow 2002
Shaleyla is a Peruvian biologist from Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (Peru), and got her PhD in Marine Biology and Conservation at Duke University (USA), by obtaining Fulbright/OAS scholarship. She has over 15 years of experience working in marine conservation biology especially with sea turtles and conducting research in different fields such as reproductive ecology, fisheries bycatch, feeding ecology using stable isotopes, and genetics among others.
Her professional interests focus on increasing scientific knowledge about marine ecosystems and their species to handle them in harmony with human activities. She would be interested to see how economic activities such as fisheries, adopt sustainable policies while ensuring the conservation of endangered species such as sea turtles. She is one of the funders and current President of the Peruvian NGO ecOceánica whose main objective is to conducting scientific research on marine ecosystems with emphasis on endangered species like sharks, rays and sea turtles, their goal is to generate sound knowledge to help protect and conserve marine biodiversity and to support the sustainable use of marine resources.
Shaleyla also enjoys teaching. He has worked as a TA for Marine Ecology, Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles, Marine megavertebrates and Biology and Conservation Policy at Duke University, and for the course Field Methods in Ecology / Conservation Biology from the University of Columbia. Furthermore, she co-teached the course Introduction to Fisheries during an international semester of the University Principia College in Peru.
Leopoldo C. Gerhardinger
Duke Fellow 2007
Leopoldo holds a Ph.D. in Environment and Society at the Centre for Environmental Studies (NEPAM), University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. He holds a B.Sc. in Oceanography (Universidade do Vale do ItajaÃ, Santa Catarina, Brazil - 2004) and a M.Sc. in Conservation (University College London - 2008). General research interests range from marine ecology and ethnoecology to, most recently, the theory and practice of Ocean governance.
He is actively involved in building knowledge networks across coastal Brazil, using web-based social media tools and cross-disciplinary facilitation approaches to advance new types of voluntary engagement for improved governability of emerging oceans issues. As a research fellow for the Earth System Governance project, he is currently engaged in the development of the project’s task force on Ocean. This includes supporting the progressive coalescing of existing Brazilian coastal-marine networks into a novel transformative knowledge network - the Brazilian Future Ocean Panel (PainelMar).
In partnership with the Brazilian office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, he is facilitating the development of this novel organization intended to orchestrate knowledge networks and thus promote catalytic collaborations in order to shift the Brazilian Ocean policy focus to the future.
Andrea Monge
Duke Fellow 2009
Home country: Mexico and Spain
Currently living in: Israel
Andrea is a marine biologist and sustainability consultant currently working at the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI). As part of her work, she is involved in an EU-funded project, Mare Nostrum, aiming to identify the policy-implementation gaps between the ideals of Integrated Coastal Zone Management and its effects on the ground in 5 Mediterranean cities. She is particularly interested in the role of civil society in coastal and marine conservation and is in the process of setting up a network of civil society organizations for the protection of the Mediterranean sea and coast.
Prior to her work at SPNI, Andrea worked 4 years as a sustainability consultant in Spain. Her clients included multinational companies, international organizations, and government agencies. Throughout her career she has been involved in environmental conservation and education projects at the UN, the Rainforest Alliance, the American Museum of Natural History, and Ecology Project International.
Andrea holds a BSc. with a major in Marine Biology from James Cook University, and an M.A. in Environmental Conservation Education from New York University. She received a Global Fellowship from the Duke University Marine Lab and a Biomimicry Specialist Certificate from Biomimicry 3.8. Andrea has lived in 6 countries and speaks 5 languages.
Nora Lisnizer
Duke Fellow 2009
I participated of the Duke Global Fellows Program in year 2009. At that time I was conducting my doctoral studies in my home country, Argentina, studying seagulls’ demography. Now I am a researcher at Centro Nacional Patagónico (CONICET), a national institution dedicated to multiple disciplines scientific research, located in the coast of Patagonia, Argentina. My areas of interest are birds that use both marine and freshwater environments, like gulls and flamingos. My studies aim to understand their annual movements in order to help improve conservation of their populations and the habitats they use. I am also involved in some environmental education programs related to seabird conservation in my local community. I think that being a part of the Marine Conservation without Borders initiative will be a valuable opportunity to get in touch with other colleagues all over the world working on marine conservation, to share ideas, get involved in marine conservation projects, learn about others experience, and seek for collaborators for my own projects.
Michael Uwagbae
Duke Fellow 2010
Michael is an environmental biologist with comprehensive interest in conservation biology and natural resource management. He is the first recipient of the Duke Marine Laboratory Global Fellows award from Nigeria in 2010. Michael has won twice the Global Fellowship mini-grant supported by the Oak Foundation and Duke University in 2011 and 2013.
He is also the first Nigerian environmental biologist to report dolphin takes (capture, slaughter and trade of dolphin meat) in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, and has done some research in assessing bycatch of sea turtles and coastal hunting of dolphins (Delphinidae) in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
He has managed several biodiversity conservation projects in Nigeria with some winning international awards. He currently country representative and project manager with Wetlands International in Nigeria and also member of various national and international environmental conservation organisations. His interests includes marine conservation (dolphins & sea turtle studies), Biodiversity Conservation, Sustainable Development, Environmental Governance, Climate Change, Environmental Management & Policy. He about rounding up his PhD studies on Animal and Environmental Biology. Michael has participated in different local and international trainings, courses, workshops, conferences and symposia and is author of a couple of papers.
Daniela Benavides
Duke Fellow 2013
Daniela is a diver, climber, yogi, dancer and director of ConCiencia, a Peruvian NGO that promotes conservation and education reform by using nature as an education matrix for all disciplines. ConCiencia builds environmental literacy and community empowerment in poor vulnerable communities in Peru where dependence on natural resource is highest but understanding of the processes is low. ConCiencia has grown into an advocacy group for nature-based education as a tool for conservation, coordinating with local public schools, a variety of private initiatives and corporations.
In 2014 Daniela presented ConCiencia's nature-based education approach at the World Forum on Education and Early Care and was Keynote Speaker and speaker at the Closing Ceremony of the IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney.
Daniela's latest project, funded by a Duke Oak Minigrant, is the ConCiencia Global Outreach Experience, by which she has contributed her expertise in Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam.