My background is mainly in species conservation, education and capacity exchange. I researched mother-young interactions in gorillas and chimpanzees, in captivity and the wild. After that, I worked for three years in Indonesia, where I developed and implemented youth ambassador and community engagement programmes on local and regional scales. I co-founded WildHub, a community of nature conservation professionals, in 2020 and work as their Community Lead. I am furthermore on the Advisory Board of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent where I obtained my PhD on capacity development for conservation in 2022.
I'm a biodiversity consultant working mainly in the corporate space. I work with large companies to help them figure out their nature-related impacts, dependancies, risks and opportunities, then use this information to create biodiversity strategies.
I was Research Fellow at Auburn University studying human-elephant interactions (now alumni!). I have completed my work in the Tsavo Ecosystem of Kenya studying wildlife mitigation measures and working with local and Indigenous communities to understand the drivers of conflict in complex social-ecological systems. I have a wide variety of inter-disciplinary interests including structured decision making, restoration and rewilding, community-based conservation, conservation management and planning, and all things associated with addressing the climate and biodiversity crises. Currently job searching and planning to relocate!
Katie Heffner
Senior Director, Partnerships and Engagement, Center for Behavior & the Environment, Rare
I am a wildlife film-maker and photographer from Kenya. Besides producing wildlife documentaries, we also publish coffee table books with Augmented Reality. I run a company in Kenya, and we are also fixers for foreign productions wanting to come and film in Kenya. Looking forward to networking and meeting new people, possibilities of working together and also find platforms to showcase our content. I am keen on sharing the little knowledge/ experience I have and also would like to learn from others.
I help run a UK charity that builds the capacity of conservationists to plan, implement, monitor, and report on their work. I also have a fair bit of experience in tiger and sea turtle conservation.
Working in conservation was always my dream job!
It took me a while to get there but fast forward some years and I was leading conservation programmes and teams around the world. During my time in that role I realised that I was both at risk of burnout and had become a little disconnected from the day-to-day conservation impact that I was passionate about. However, I loved developing, supporting and coaching the teams I managed and decided to re-train as a coach so that I could spend more time focusing on supporting others to excel in their role and remain passionate and effective within the conservation sector.
I joined WildHub to stay up-to-date with the conservation world, share my experiences and support conservation professionals however I can.