Saeideh Esmaeili truly is a rennaissance woman of southwest Asian mammals, working on goitered gazelle, Indian gazelle, sand cat, and Asiatic cheetah before completing a superb dissertation on the ecological and socio-economic correlates surrounding the migrations of a globally-endangered equid, the onager.

Channeling John Wayne (or Jeff Bridges, if you prefer), Saeideh personified true grit: she once navigated a financial transfer between five(!) countries to support the first GPS collaring effort of an ungulate in her home country of Iran. At a postdoc at Colorado State University, she now partners with the IUCN Equid Specialist Group, employing her talents in movement modeling to conserve equids across the globe.

Current position: Research Scientist, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University

Sarah Weiner was the latest in an illustrious succession of UHURU project managers. In a karmic twist of fate, she conducted independent research with Felicia Keesing, Jake's first mentor in Kenya. Side note: Sarah's threshold for pain stemming from pouched mouse bites is the stuff of legends.

Current position: Program Assistant, Mount Kenya Trust

Scott Carpenter was the project manager extraordinnaire for the big-headed ant research, and conducted work on how invasion influences nest success of social weavers to boot. In this photo, he bows in deference to a curious silverback.

Current position: PhD Student, Yale University

Simon Lima (pictured here after a trying stint in Tsavo National Park) was an invaluable member of our research team between 2004 and 2015, and triumphantly returned in 2019 to assist with Dedan's work. He is a guru with GPS, wildlife captures, and radio-telemetry, and he can spot giraffes at over 500 km (pun intended, to be sure).

Stephen Kinyua was the inaugural project leader on the UHURU small-mammal sampling. Steve was advised by Jake and Paul Webala at Moi University and now serves as a Project Manager for Wildlife Cybercrime for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Current position: Project Manager, International Fund for Animal Welfare