We would like to welcome two new staff members who joined the Primate and Predator Project team based at Lajuma Research Centre this week!
Trevor Jones is the PPP Primate Coordinator and will be overseeing the primate data collection and analysis. He worked in East Africa, and especially the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania, from 2001-2013. He carried out the first habituation and ecological study of the Udzungwa-endemic Sanje mangabey, found the new genus of monkey Rungwecebus kipunji in the Udzungwas in 2004, and has worked on wildlife corridors and community-based ecological monitoring. His PhD study looked at predictors of Afromontane forest mammal distribution and abundance. In 2008, Trevor and Kate Nowak founded the Udzungwa Elephant Project, and they also campaign together on elephant poaching issues, and against the ivory trade. During 2009-10 Trevor worked with the Tanzanian government to develop their current National Elephant Management Plan. He is a member of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group, and also a keen birder and raptorphile.
Dr. Katarzyna Nowak (Kate) joined the PPP as a post-doc researcher. She is currently developing a project on risk, fear and cognition in samango monkeys at Lajuma. Kate has worked in Africa since 2000. Kate has done fieldwork in "refuge" habitats such as mangrove and montane forests. She studied Zanzibar red colobus in unprotected coral rag and mangrove forests in the Zanzibar archipelago, and forest-dwelling savanna elephants in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania. She’s a member of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group, and is interested in primate cognition and behavioural flexibility, primate-predator interactions, and in mitigation of human-wildlife conflicts. Kate is also co-editing a volume about primates in flooded habitats.
