Biography
Dr. Heather E. Eves is actively engaged with opportunities working in effective teams, coaching for emerging and engaged conservation leaders, and pursuit of evidence-based problem solving in conservation and development. She is a wildlife biologist and conservation professional having studied and worked internationally with a focus in Africa since 1985, and the Caribbean since 2012. She also consults on wildlife conservation and capacity development projects and teaches graduate courses at a number of universities. She is a certified coach through ICF Accredited Coach Training Alliance. She is a graduate of Yale University’s School of the Environment with a doctorate in wildlife conservation and policy sciences. Her Master of Science in Wildlife Science and a minor in Experimental Statistics from New Mexico State University involved a full-year Fulbright research project focused on game bird hunting management in Kenya, East Africa. Her Bachelor of Science from University of New Hampshire is in Animal Science/Pre-Veterinary Medicine.
Recent field research includes monitoring and evaluating the impacts of an education-entertainment conservation radio drama in Tanzania (2013-2014) and mentoring a team evaluating sea turtle worker safety in the Caribbean (2012-2014). With a team of senior colleagues she is a member of the Board of Directors awarded a grant to build a 2-year (2014-2016) leadership-training program in the Caribbean that successfully concluded its first cohort and continued with additional cohorts starting 2017-2018. She is also the recipient of a Science Case Fellowship Network (2014-2015) to build and evaluate conservation case studies for online teaching.
Since 2009, Dr. Eves, an Associate Professor of Practice, has been teaching at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and the Environment, Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability and since 2010 she has been a Professorial Lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington DC offering courses in International Wildlife Conservation and Development, Global Issues in Natural Resources and Adaptive Management through the Conservation Standards. She was a Professor in the Department of Biology, Ecology and Conservation at St. George’s University in the Caribbean island of Grenada (AY 2012-2013).
She collaboratively trained a conservation team from East Africa as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the Mweka College of African Wildlife Management, Tanzania (2008-2009) and continued as the Chief Technical Advisor to the resulting Bushmeat-free Eastern Africa Network for several years. Heather directed the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force (2000-2008) a partnership of over 30 conservation organizations that raised the profile of the bushmeat issue globally and contributed to important research, policy and program development on this critical conservation issue.
Her doctoral dissertation research (1994-1999) focused on bushmeat trade and policy development in Central Africa as well as conservation organizational management in Washington DC among major conservation non-profits. Her thesis work (1991-1994), also supported by a Fulbright scholarship, focused on game bird hunting and management in Kenya. In addition to field research and conservation program development, she created wildlife education programmes as Coordinator of the William Holden Wildlife Education Center (1989-1991) in Kenya and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya (1986-1988).
She has extensive experience in program management, field research, capacity-building / mentorship / coaching, fundraising, conservation project design and planning (Conservation Standards, Miradi), partnership development, policy, media and communications. Heather is a member of the IUCN/SSC Antelope Specialist Group and Primate Specialist Group Subgroup on Great Apes, was on the Editorial Advisory Board of The Wildlife Society’s The Wildlife Professional, a Board Member of the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders fellowship program (2004-2014), and former ProjectWILD Facilitator.
She is published in Oryx, TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution, African Journal of Ecology, Conservation in Practice, Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, Biodiversity Conservation along with a number of book chapters and professional association publications. She has participated in a number of conservation policy efforts including US Congressional briefings, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN).