Alexandra Zimmermann

Dr Alexandra Zimmermann specializes in human-wildlife conflict and conflict resolution in biodiversity conservation, with 20 years’ experience in designing wildlife conflict mitigation processes around the globe. Her work has spanned a wide range of social, political and environmental contexts and included conflicts over jaguars and pumas in Brazil and Venezuela, elephants in India and Indonesia, tigers in Nepal, bears in Bolivia, and fruit bats in Mauritius. Much of this has been focussed on designing community-led solutions, collaborative conflict analysis, stakeholder dialogue and negotiation, as well as training and policy work.

She is Senior Research Fellow at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford, and is the founding Chair of the IUCN SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict Task Force. She is also Senior Advisor with the World Bank’s Global Wildlife Program and Speciality Chief Editor for the academic journal Frontiers in Conservation Science. She was previously with Chester Zoo for 18 years, where as Head of Conservation Science her focus was on R&D and strategy, as well a spearheading projects in Latin America and South Asia.

She is an interdisciplinary scientist, with degrees in zoology and conservation biology, followed by a doctorate in conservation social science at Oxford, and specialist training in non-profit strategy, conflict resolution, negotiation and multilateral negotiation at Harvard and the UN.