Advisory Board - The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund

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Home > Biodiversity, Nature & People > Conservation Philanthropy > Grants > Advisory Board

The Fund has established an independent Advisory Board made up of conservation experts across various taxa. This board advises the Fund’s Board of Directors on applications submitted for consideration.

Before their review, applications are carefully filtered by the Fund’s management team to ensure that only proposals meeting the Fund’s minimum criteria reach the Advisory Board. As of 2024, a representative from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has been added to reflect the partnership established through the Fonseca Leadership Program.

Nicolas Heard

Acting Director General, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund

Russell Mittermeier

Chairman

(Primates and Chelonians)

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Michael Maunder

Advisory Board member

(Plants and Fungi)

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Olivier Langrand

Advisory Board member

(Birds)

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Allison Alberts

Advisory Board member

(Non-chelonian reptiles)

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Anders Rhodin

Advisory Board member

(Chelonians)

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Gina Della Togna

Advisory Board member

(Amphibians)

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Axel Hochkirch

Advisory Board member

Axel Hochkirch

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Jean-Christophe Vie

Advisory Board member

(Non-felid mammals)

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Ian Harrison

Advisory Board member

(Fish)

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Jim Sanderson

Advisory Board member

(Cats)

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William Konstant

Advisory Board member

(Non-felid mammals)

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Nicolas Heard

Acting Director General, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund

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Russell Mittermeier

Chairman

(Primates and Chelonians)

Russell A. Mittermeier is currently Chief Conservation Officer of Re:wild. Prior to this position, he served for three years as Executive Vice Chair at Conservation International and as President of that organization from 1989 to 2014. Before joining CI, he was Vice-President for Science at WWF-US, where he worked from 1979 to 1989. Mittermeier was born in New York City, grew up on Long Island, and received his doctorate in biological anthropology from Harvard in 1977. Since 1977, Mittermeier has served as Chairman of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group, and he has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Species Survival Commission since 1982.

Named a “Hero for the Planet” by TIME magazine in 1999 and the recipient of the prestigious Indianapolis Prize in 2018, Mittermeier is regarded as a world leader in the field of biodiversity and tropical forest conservation. His work has also been recognized by several national governments including Brazil (Order of the Southern Cross from the President of Brazil), Suriname (Order of the Yellow Sash from the President of Suriname) and the Netherlands (Order of the Golden Ark from Prince Bernhard).

Trained as a primatologist and herpetologist, he has traveled widely in 172 countries on seven continents, and has conducted field work in more than 30 − focusing particularly on Amazonia (especially Brazil and Suriname), the Atlantic forest region of Brazil, and Madagascar. In addition, Mittermeier has placed considerable emphasis on publishing. His output now includes 45 books and nearly 800 scientific and popular articles.

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Michael Maunder

Advisory Board member

(Plants and Fungi)

Mike is a botanist and conservationist with over 35 year’s experience in leading conservation initiatives, He started his conservation career studying horticulture and botany at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, later doing a PhD on the conservation management of threatened plants.

Over the last 35 years Mike has worked with some of the most threatened species and habitats on the planet, having worked on species conservation and ecological restoration in Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia, USA, and Hawai’i. Until recently Mike was Executive Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative with oversight of the Endangered Landscapes Programme-one of Europe’s largest restoration initiatives. Mike is Executive Chair of Kew Reach, a commercial venture delivering large scale restoration of nature. Mike was a founding board member of the Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund (UAE), is a board member of the Conservation Collective (UK), a scientific advisor to the Fondation Franklinia, a faculty member of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership (CISL) and research associate at the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.

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Olivier Langrand

Advisory Board member

(Birds)

For the past ten years, Olivier Langrand has been the executive director of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), a multi-donor fund dedicated to protecting biodiversity hotspots through the support of civil society organizations. Conservation International hosts the CEPF Secretariat at its headquarters in Arlington, USA.

Olivier’s wildlife conservation career spans 40 years, half of it spent in the field. He has extensive experience in the design and implementation of tropical forest conservation programs in Madagascar and southern and central Africa. Olivier previously worked for Island Conservation, Conservation International, and WWF-International.

An avid birder, Olivier is considered an expert on the birds of the southwestern Indian Ocean islands and has authored field guides on the avifauna of this region. Olivier grew up in France and lived in Madagascar, Gabon, and South Africa. He has a Master of Science in zoology from the University of Natal in South Africa. Olivier currently lives in Virginia, USA.

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Allison Alberts

Advisory Board member

(Non-chelonian reptiles)

Dr. Allison Alberts is a conservation science leader with more than 30 years of experience working globally to save endangered species. In 2020, she retired from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, where she served as Chief Conservation and Research Officer. Currently, Allison is a Senior Advisor at EcoLeaders, where she specializes in strategic planning for conservation NGOs. She is co-founder of the IUCN Iguana Specialist Group and past President of the International Iguana Foundation. As a reptile and amphibian specialist, Allison has worked with endangered iguanas in Costa Rica, Cuba, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Fiji, as well as Komodo Dragons, sea turtles, desert tortoises, and native California plants, frogs, lizards, and snakes. She has authored over 130 scientific articles and three books. In 2015, she was honored with the Athena Pinnacle Award for excellence in recognition, promotion, and mentorship of women in the life sciences.

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Anders Rhodin

Advisory Board member

(Chelonians)

Anders G.J. Rhodin, M.D., is a Swedish-American retired orthopedic surgeon as well as a turtle researcher and conservationist. He has been doing research on turtles since the 1970s, initially at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, currently has over 300 turtle publications, and has described six new species of turtles. He founded Chelonian Research Foundation in 1992 for the production, publication, and support of worldwide turtle and tortoise research. He is founding editor and publisher of Chelonian Conservation and Biology, a scientific journal devoted to turtles and tortoises, and Chelonian Research Monographs. He was Co-Chair or Chair of the IUCN Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group (TFTSG) from 2000 to 2012 and is currently Executive Vice Chair. He has received the Sir Peter Scott Award for Conservation Merit from IUCN and the Behler Turtle Conservation Award from the TFTSG and Turtle Survival Alliance. He is Chair Emeritus of the Turtle Conservancy and founding Co-Chair of the Turtle Conservation Fund, Turtle Taxonomy Fund, and Congdon-Dickson Turtle Ecology Fund. He is also co-founder and leader of the Turtle Taxonomy Working Group of the TFTSG that publishes the multi-edition reference on Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist and Atlas.

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Gina Della Togna

Advisory Board member

(Amphibians)

Dr. Gina Della Togna is a conservationist and researcher currently serving as the Executive Director of the Amphibian Survival Alliance and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences, specializing in Molecular and Cell Biology, from the University of Maryland, USA. Her pioneering research focuses on amphibian reproductive biology and Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) of endangered amphibians. Dr. Della Togna co-chairs the IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group ARTs and Biobanking Working Group and is a co-author of the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP). She actively participates in the IUCN SSC ASG Atelopus Task Force, and Co-chairs the Ex Situ Working Group of the Atelopus Survival Initiative (ASI). Dr. Della Togna serves on the Advisory Board of the Re:wild Fonseca Species Conservation Fund and is a member of the Executive Committee for the World Congress of Herpetology (2024-2032). Her dedicated efforts significantly contribute to global amphibian conservation.

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Axel Hochkirch

Advisory Board member

Axel Hochkirch

Axel Hochkirch is the head of conservation biology at the National Museum of Natural History Luxembourg, chair of the IUCN SSC Invertebrate Conservation Committee and chair of the IUCN SSC Grasshopper Specialist Group. Axel has engaged in species conservation since his early youth and initiated and supported numerous insect conservation projects. He studied biology at the University of Bremen (Germany), where he also completed his PhD on grasshoppers of the Eastern Arc Mountains, Tanzania. Afterwards, he worked as assistant professor at the University of Osnabrück (Germany) and later became scientific lab manager and associate professor at the Biogeography department of Trier University (Germany). Axel authored >200 scientific publications, dealing with conservation policy, conservation genetics, animal ecology, behaviour, evolution and taxonomy. He also developed several action plans for threatened invertebrate species, helped to develop the IUCN Key Biodiversity standard and Green Status of Species standard, and serves on several advisory bodies for governmental and non-governmental organizations.

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Jean-Christophe Vie

Advisory Board member

(Non-felid mammals)

Jean-Christophe started his career as a wildlife veterinarian and then completed a PhD in ecology. Today he is Director General of Fondation Franklinia, a Swiss foundation dedicated to the conservation of threatened trees. He previously worked for IUCN, first in West Africa and then as Deputy Director of the Species Programme and Director of SOS-Save Our Species and Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme. He has been a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission for almost 4 decades and is a member of its Steering Committee.

During his career he also worked for a local NGO and the business sector. He developed and managed local and international conservation programmes, lead scientific studies, managed Red List assessments initiatives, undertook wildlife translocations, created grant making mechanisms, helped create protected areas, worked with local communities, participate in international policy events…

He gained field experience in different parts of the world at the beginning of his career, working on a range of species on different continents, mostly primates and marine turtles but also caimans, snakes… He is a French and Swiss national.

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Ian Harrison

Advisory Board member

(Fish)

Ian Harrison obtained his Ph.D. in systematic ichthyology at the University of Bristol, UK. He has conducted research on marine and freshwater fishes from several parts of the world, including fieldwork in Europe, Central and South America, West and Western Central Africa, the Philippines, and the Central Pacific. He was based at the American Museum of Natural History from 1996 to 2008, conducting research on systematic ichthyology and freshwater conservation biology, before working with Conservation International (CI) until 2024. He has served as the Technical Officer for the Freshwater Fish Specialist Group of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission (SSC), is part of the Steering Committee for SSC, and co-chair of the IUCN-SSC Freshwater Conservation Committee. He is an Adjunct Professor for the School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University. He is currently based in Flagstaff, Arizona.

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Jim Sanderson

Advisory Board member

(Cats)

Jim Sanderson received a PhDs from the University of New Mexico (1976, Mathematics), and University of Florida (2000, Wildlife Ecology & Conservation). He is the founder and director of the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation, a member of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, a review team member of the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, and a partner of Wildlife Conservation Network. Jim’s mission is to ensure the survival of small wild cats and their natural habitats worldwide. This mission is achieved by working with local partners around the world to identify and mitigate threats to the world’s small wild cats.

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William Konstant

Advisory Board member

(Non-felid mammals)

Bill Konstant is a career wildlife biologist born and raised in the seaside town of Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York. He has worked for international conservation organizations both large and small. In addition, Bill has helped develop global species conservation programs for several North American zoos, initiated captive breeding and reintroduction efforts for a number of endangered species, and participated in the creation of private protected areas, wildlife sanctuaries and national parks in Central and South America, Africa and Asia. Bill’s specialty is primate conservation but he has also spent years working to safeguard the future for threatened amphibian species in the New World Tropics. He currently lives just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his wife Nannette.