About me

I am a Biologist interested in mammal ecology and conservation. I have extensive field experience working in the tropics. Recently I moved from Ecuador, where I was working in a vertebrate inventory project, to Colombia. I enjoy learning about R and computers. I am also an avid photographer.

Work

I worked at Awake Travel on a biodiversity monitoring project, and at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as a biodiversity specialist for the Northern Andes and South Central America Region (NASCA). I have a particular interest in ecology, natural history, and the conservation of threatened species. Specific topics include community assemblage, foraging ecology, habitat use, and resource selection, hunting, human-wildlife conflict, and wildlife management. My research has been focused on my favorite species: Mountain Tapir. Most recently, I have been working on monitoring wildlife using bioacoustics, occupancy modeling based on camera trap data, and understanding deforestation and its impacts on biodiversity using hierarchical models and Bayesian statistics. I am a Biologist from Los Andes University (Bogotá) and received a Ph.D. from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UK). Before joining TNC, I was a research scientist at ULEAM Ecuador, leading a biodiversity monitoring project in two National Parks. I was also a visiting scientist at Conservation International in the U.S. working with the Tropical Ecology and Monitoring Network (TEAM) terrestrial vertebrate dataset. I am passionate about mountain tapirs, kite building and flying, photography, and bread baking.

This site hosts my blog, a description of my research interests, social media links, and other things I use to spend my time.

Contact

email: dj[dot]lizcano[at]gmail[dot]com