Our Team

Prof. Sarah Durant

Project Leader – Cheetah

Sarah Durant is a Professor at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London and leads the African Range-wide Cheetah Conservation Initiative. She is a conservation scientist and practitioner, with more than 30 years' experience in scientific research and conservation of cheetahs and other large carnivores. Since 1991 she has led a long-term study of individually recognised cheetahs, the Serengeti Cheetah Project, which is the longest ongoing study of wild cheetahs. Over the last decade her work has increasingly taken a multidisciplinary approach, in recognition of the critical importance of the need to integrate social and ecological dimensions in the development of conservation solutions.

sarah.durant@ioz.ac.uk

DR. Nick Mitchell, PhD

Regional Coordinator, Eastern Africa

Nick has been working on research and conservation in Eastern Africa for two decades and has been the Eastern African regional coordinator for the program since 2012. His interests and experience lie in human-carnivore conflict, for which he has had a focus on Tanzania and Kenya in the Serengeti-Tsavo cheetah landscape, and in the illegal wildlife trade for which he has been working with countries in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, especially within the CITES forum. These two aspects continue as central themes to Nick’s work. His previous work in the region was on participatory land use planning and land use change, and his PhD used GIS to investigate the long-term land use change and disturbance in Kenya and Uganda.

nicholas.mitchell@ioz.ac.uk

Dr. Audrey Ipavec

Regional Coordinator (Western, Central and Northern Africa)

Dr Audrey Ipavec is a wildlife ecologist who has been working in Southern and Western African savanna ecosystems since 1999, obtaining her PhD in Research and Conservation studying elephant population distribution in the W Regional Park, West Africa. She has also been lecturing on ecology and human wildlife conflict. Since 2013, Audrey joined the CCI team to coordinate the program in the Northern, Western and Central Africa. In this role based in Benin, she assists cheetah and African wild dog range states in the development and implementation of their National Conservation Action Plans and also works closely with ZSL’s Africa Program to develop their project in the WAP landscape which was an important step to safeguarding one of the five cheetah populations in the region, securing multiple funds to achieve concrete conservation activities.

audrey-rwcp@zsl.org

Dr. Rosemary Groom

Southern African Coordinator

Rosemary is a conservation biologist who has been working in East and southern Africa since 2001. In 2008, she moved to Zimbabwe to work on large carnivore conservation, focusing on the African wild dog. Her areas of interest and expertise include working at local, regional and international levels with a variety of stakeholders on carnivore conservation issues and designing and implementing large-scale field conservation projects which include a strong education and community engagement component. She has been the Southern African Coordinator for the CCI (formerly RWCP) since 2013.

rosemary.groom@ioz.ac.uk

David Elizalde Castells

David is a conservationist with an MSc in geomatics. He has been living in Angola since 2012, where he lectured at the university and worked as data manager for a climate change science organization. He has been working with CCI since 2017, mainly assessing the remaining wildlife and recovery potential for several conservation areas in the country. He has a strong interest in GIS, data analysis and camera trapping.

david.elizalde@ioz.ac.uk

Sara Fernandes Elizalde

Sara Elizalde is an Angolan wildlife conservationist and holds a MSc in Conservation Biology from the University of Cape Town. She has been working with CCI since 2017 conducting field expeditions and reporting on mammal surveys in various protected areas for which there was a gap in knowledge of almost 50 years. She has also developed the management plan for a national park, trained students and government technicians on wildlife monitoring technics and provided support to government in matters related to large carnivores’ conservation.

sara.elizalde@ioz.ac.uk

alfonse odipo

CCI Program Support Officer

Mr. Alfonse Odipo is a natural resource conservationist who has been working in East Africa ecosystems since 2015. His areas of interest and expertise include local and international work on wildlife research and conservation, community engagement, policy, and advocacy as well as climate change governance. Resident in Nairobi, Kenya, he has been working on human-wildlife conflict and rangeland mapping using remote sensing and GIS. He joined the CCI as Program Support Officer in 2021

Dennis Minja, MSc

Dennis Minja is CCI's first regional Support Scientist for eastern Africa. He is a Tanzanian wildlife researcher and conservation scientist with CCI since 2014, having served as project manager of the Serengeti Cheetah Project in Tanzania from 2014 -2021 before gaining his PhD through the Institute of Zoology (ZSL) and the University of Glasgow, Scotland. His doctoral research focused on understanding how anthropogenic pressures and habitat characteristics influence cheetah movement patterns, habitat use, hunting behaviour, and hunting success within the Serengeti ecosystem. His work explored the impacts of pastoralism and tourism activities on cheetah ecology using GPS telemetry, spatial analysis, and behavioural observations. Building on long-term Serengeti Cheetah dataset, his research aimed to generate practical conservation insights to help guide wildlife management and support coexistence between cheetahs and people across multi-use landscapes. Dennis is now working as the Regional Support Scientist (eastern Africa), supporting regional Cheetah research, conservation planning, scientific collaboration, student mentorship, and stakeholder engagement across eastern Africa.

dennis.minja@ioz.ac.uk

Zawadi Mbwambo

Zawadi is the driver-mechanic and field assistant for the Serengeti Cheetah Project and has worked with the project for many years. As the project has only ever used Land Rover Defenders, Zawadi can only be considered one of the most experienced and best Land Rover mechanics in the region. He was also employed as a mechanic at Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), a government parastatal.

Kelvin Munisi, MSc

Kelvin Munisi is currently a CCI PhD student with experience in wildlife monitoring and field-based research focused on the Serengeti in Tanzania. He served as a Project Manager of Serengeti Cheetah Project from 2021- October 2025, where he led field surveys and long-term monitoring of cheetah populations. He began his PhD in October 2025 with the Institute of Zoology (ZSL) and the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on understanding spatial and temporal patterns of genetic variation in cheetahs across the Kenya-Tanzania borderlands, integrating field surveys, spatial analysis, and genomic approaches to assess connectivity between protected areas. His work aims to identify and inform the protection of critical wildlife corridors, supporting evidence-based conservation and land-use planning across the region.

kelvin.munisi@ioz.ac.uk