Nancy Czekala, Founded Papoose Conservation Wildlife Foundation in 2003.  She has been all over the world in Nature and studied all types of species in the wild.  She has walked with mountain gorillas (of Gorillas in the Mist fame) in Rwanda.  She was the first to work directly with this species to monitor hormone changes for reproduction and stress - all in a non-invasive manner.  She has directed a team of 20 African trackers in Zimbabwe to study wild black rhinoceros, the first study of its kind.  She led a team of research scientists to investigate the biology of the white rhino in South Africa, for the first time documenting critical biological information for the managing the species for their well being in the wild.  She has worked closely with the Chinese government to help save the giant panda.  When she began work in China, to share her knowledge in monitoring reproduction in the giant panda, this species was doomed to extinction in captivity, with a negative population growth.  Today with the use of the technique, the giant panda population is bursting at the seams in China with a reported 31 births this year (2006).  Her work was instrumental in the panda births in the United States.  Nancy has published over 100 peer reviewed manuscripts and book chapters during her 30 year career at the San Diego Zoo.  She was awarded the 1997 American Society of Primatologists Senior Biology and Conservation Award.  She is dedicated to Nature and to the well being of all species, including our own.

Don Lindburg holds a PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of California-Berkeley. He has taught Anthropology at UC-Davis and UCLA. In 1979 he was recruited by the Zoological Society of San Diego to establish a research program in Animal Behavior. In 2001 he became the head of a new department in Giant Panda Biology. Under his guidance record numbers of cheetah and giant pandas cubs have been born at the San Diego Zoo. Don has received the Smithsonian‚s Centennial Award for Excellence in Zoo Research, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Presidential Award for 10 years of service as editor of the journal Zoo Biology, and the American Society of Primatologists Outstanding Primatologist Award.

Megan Owen is inspired by wildlife and Nature. As a pre-med biology-major at the City College of New York, she was given the opportunity to do a summer of field work in the Canadian sub-arctic. It takes just these moments of Nature touching people to turn lives.  During this field season outside of Churchill, Manitoba, she experienced wildlife up-close, encountering polar bears, wolves, foxes, caribou and numerous species of waterfowl, shorebirds and passerines.  Now on a conservation path, her undergraduate and Masters thesis work was focused on assessing the impacts of human disturbance on birds, specifically Lesser Snow Geese.  She worked for USGS on the Y-K Delta and Alaska Peninsula for a few field seasons, thus cementing her love of wildlife and wild places. 
In 1996 Megan was introduced to the world of the giant panda.  Studying the panda for the Zoological society of San Diego, she spent 1 year in the mountains of China, at the Wolong Nature Reserve.  In Megan’s words…”I came to work on the panda project in 1996.  Although this was a dramatic taxonomic shift for me, the conservation nature of the project had tremendous appeal.  On this project I have focused on the impact of human disturbance on behavior and hormonal indices of stress in giant pandas, as well as mother-infant relationships and communication in bears”.  She has now added the Polar bear to her list of conservation studies with several ongoing projects in polar bear communication.
She received her BS in biology in 1992 from CCNY and her MA in biology from CCNY in 1994. Megan is currently the Research Coordinator in the Giant Panda Conservation Unit for the San Diego Zoo.  

Cheryl D. Knott is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University.  She received her B.S. degree from the University of California, Davis and her A.M. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University.  Since 1992 she has been conducting research on wild orangutans in Gunung Palung National Park, Indonesia, where she is the Director of the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project.  Her research focuses on orangutan reproduction, nutrition, socio-ecology and evolution. Her research has been supported by the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and Harvard University.
In 2000 Dr. Knott and Elizabeth Hill founded the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Project to protect the orangutans of Gunung Palung and their habitat.  The program involves community outreach and education, teacher education workshops, student fieldtrips to the national park, conservation awareness, endangered animal protection, and assisting communities with development of alternative livelihoods.  This work has been sponsored by the Orangutan Conservancy, the Conservation Food and Health Foundation, The National Geographic Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Woodland Park Zoo, Primate Conservation Incorporated, and the Atlanta Zoo.
Dr. Knott is also interested in women's reproductive biology and human evolution.  She teaches courses on human and primate reproduction, nutrition and behavior.  In addition to her scientific publications, Dr. Knott's work has been featured in popular forums such as National Geographic Magazine in August 1998 and October 2003 and on National Geographic Explorer Television.  She lives with her husband, Dr. Timothy Laman, a rain forest biologist and wildlife photographer, and their children Russell and Jessica, in Lexington, MA.  She and her family were recently featured in the children's book, Adventures of Riley:  Operation Orangutan.