Giorgia Auteri is Conservation Nation’s 2022 established conservationist grant winner. She developed an interest in wildlife conservation at an early age after observing the effects of water pollution on animals near her childhood home in Seattle, WA. Giorgia obtained a B.S. in public affairs from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. She later shifted from management and policy to research, earning her Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan.Â
While pursuing her doctorate, Giorgia began incorporating conservation genetics into her research to understand how animals adapt to changing environments, move across the landscape, and cope with other environmental changes. She is currently an assistant professor at Missouri State University, where she studies how mammals like bats and bears respond to human-caused environmental changes.
Prioritizing Research and Conservation of Endangered Black Bears
Giorgia’s project will focus on the threatened—and under-researched—Himalayan black bears of the mid-to-high hills of Nepal. This species faces several threats, including poaching, climate change, habitat degradation and fragmentation, and conflicts with communities because of the bears’ use of agricultural resources. To help inform conservation decisions, Giorgia and her Nepalese collaborator, Suman Shree Neupane, will collect and analyze DNA isolated from bear fecal samples. They will use the information from the DNA to understand components essential to bear conservation, including genetic diversity, food sources, important movement corridors, and bear populations of concern. She plans to encourage co-existence with bears and increase awareness of the importance of bear conservation via community workshops and campaigns, conversations with pastoralists, informational boards in areas with high human-bear conflict, an educational program in local schools, and a publicly-accessible film.
