Besides the guy in the Dos Equis commercials, Abdullahi Hussein Ali might be the most interesting man in the world (we're biased, of course!). Fluent in four languages, Ali was born to a household of 13 brothers and sisters on the Kenya-Somali border. At the age of eight, he first set foot in a permanent structure, a schoolhouse that his uncle--then the Chief of General Staff of the Kenya Defence Forces--built with funds from the president as a reward for suppressing a military coup.

Ali's dissertation focused on the range collapse, demography, and conservation of hirola, a critically endangered antelope confined to a swath of unprotected land in eastern Kenya.

Current position: Director and Founder, Hirola Conservation Programme

Adam "AKA All Terrain, AKA Aboot Toque, AKA Alcohol-Tobacco-Firearms" Ford completed a Liber Ero postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Guelph, before joining the faculty at the University of British Columbia Okanagan as a Canada Research Chair.

We have many fond and unusual memories of Adam. These include, but are not limited to, a Hazzard county-esque chase ending unceremoniously with bout of pink eye, and a tense situation involving a dying rabbit call, a leopard, and an unspeakable amount of mud. He will be missed mightily, and we don't mean perhaps.

Current position: Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Restoration Ecology, University of British Columbia Okanagan

Ali has worked with our research group for over 10 years. He is the consummate natural historian, with encyclopedic knowledge of darned near every critter--flora and fauna--on the UHURU project. Ali is absolutely essential to keeping our projects in Laikipia running smoothly while we're across the pond.

Current position: Research Assistant, Pride of Meru Programme