Research, Wildlife Conservation & Community Engagement Officer

Our researcher, wildlife conservation & community engagement officer for Eburu Forest and Mt. Kenya has been with Rhino Ark since 2015 through a long term partnership agreement with The Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo of Canada. Dr. Sheppard is leading a long-term collaboration entitled the Rhino Ark / Calgary Zoo Mountain Forest Conservation Partnership in Kenya’s mountain forests focussed on the survival of the critically endangered, endemic mountain bongo.

Donna is a Canadian with 20 years of community-based natural resource management experience in Africa, including 11 years permanently based in Ghana and Liberia, West Africa, prior to moving to Kenya.

Dr. Sheppard has a PhD in Rural Studies and Environmental Design from the University of Guelph, Canada looking at conservation values in belief-based sacred forests of Ghana and Liberia, West Africa, and a Master’s’ Degree in Physical Anthropology from the University of Calgary, Canada on the comparative ecology of redtail monkeys living in logged and unlogged forests in Uganda.