Paula Kahumbu
Who is Paula Kahumbu? Birth, Age, Ethnicity, Nationality Paula Kahumbu is the Chief Executive Officer of the Kenyan conservation NGO WildlifeDirect and a multi-award-winning Kenyan wildlife campaigner, author, and environmentalist. Dr. Paula is best recognized for co-founding the Hands Off Our Elephants campaign with Kenyan First Lady Margaret Kenyatta to raise awareness about wildlife conservation. She is also the host of the Wildlife Warriors television series, which debuted on Citizen Tv on April 7, 2019. The television show aims to highlight local environmental heroes. She is also the chairperson of the National Museums of Kenya. Family, Parents, Siblings, Education The activist grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, where she attended Loreto Convent Msongari for primary and high school. Dr. Paula was awarded a Kenyan government scholarship to study Ecology and Biology at the University of Bristol after completing her secondary education. Following the completion of her undergraduate studies, she participated in a Master’s degree program at the University of Florida for a course in Wildlife and Range science, graduating in 1992. She attended Princeton University on a Petri scholarship from 1994 to 2002, where she got her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She obtained her Certificate in the Program for Management Development from the Gordon Institute of Business Sciences at the University of Pretoria in 2005. The Professional Career of Paula Kahumbu Dr. Kahumbu was first supervised by Dr. Richard Leakey, a well-known Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician. Dr. Leakey was the Director of the National Museum of Kenya and the Kenyan Wildlife Service before founding the NGO WildlifeDirect. Leakey is also the chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Dr. Paula specialized in primates in her early studies and research, publishing her Master’s thesis on the monkeys of the Tana River Primate National Reserve. She studied elephants in the Shimba Hills on Kenya’s coast for her doctorate. Paula joined The Kenya Wildlife Service upon her return to Kenya. Her responsibilities included quantitative research, such as counting and measuring the ivory stockpile in the country’s vaults for Richard Leakey’s infamous televised tusk burning. Working with KWS transformed her perspective on elephants, which influenced her Ph.D. decision to study elephants rather than primates. This impacted her doctoral studies at Princeton University, where she studied elephants in Shimba Hills. She returned to Kenya after receiving her Ph.D. from Princeton University, where she led the Kenyan delegation to the CTIES-Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Paula would become the executive director of WildlifeDirect, a nonprofit organization created in 2004 by her mentor Richard Leakey, 2007. The NGO functioned as an online platform for African conservationists to speak out to safeguard both flora and fauna. Over the years, the group has grown to become Africa’s largest wildlife blogging site, covering a wide range of conservation concerns, from defending chimps in Sierra Leone to wild dogs in Zimbabwe Dr. Paula works as a lecturer at Princeton University, where she teaches an undergraduate course in community conservation during an annual field course in Kenya. Paula established the “Hands Off Our Elephants” campaign at WildlifeDirect to eliminate wildlife poaching and the ivory trade and has now garnered the support of Kenyan First Lady Margaret Kenyatta….