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Welcoming new members to our DRC team.

We are pleased to welcome Frederik Van de Perre, Ph.D., and Constance Fastré, Ph.D., to our DRC team!

Frederik completed his doctorate in March 2020, shortly before joining the Fossey Fund. Frederik also has a master’s degree in Biodiversity: Conservation and Restoration from the University of Antwerp in Belgium. His thesis project on connectivity for mammals and potential wildlife corridors around Sadaani National Park in Tanzania received the Jacques Kets Award for nature conservation in 2012.

Frederik’s Ph.D. project investigated patterns of biodiversity and carbon storage in the Congo Basin lowland rainforest in collaboration with the University of Antwerp, the Botanic Garden of Meise and the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences. Frederik spent several months in the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve in DR Congo, where he collected data on small mammal diversity in collaboration with the Centre de Surveillance de la Biodiversité (UNIKIS).

Since completing his doctorate in March, Frederik has worked in Belgium as an environmental business developer at Biotope, one of the largest environment consultancies in the world. He joins our staff as a research scientist and will conduct biodiversity research in the Nkuba Conservation Area (NCA).

Constance also holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in Biodiversity: Conservation and Restoration from the University of Antwerp, where she studied the ecology and conservation of the endangered red-fronted macaw of Bolivia.

Her Ph.D. project, begun in 2013, aimed to support the management of biodiversity, ecosystem services and local livelihoods in a protected area in Bolivia. For four years she divided her time between Belgium and Bolivia, where she collaborated with the Universidad Mayor de San Simon and worked in remote locations in the Andes. She also spent several months studying conservation planning at Queensland University in Australia.

In 2018, Constance joined the Zoological Society of London, where she managed a one-year project aiming to explore the feasibility and efficiency of proposed post-2020 global conservation strategies on the extinction risk of mammal and bird species and on food production in the world. She later contributed to World Wildlife Federation’s Living Planet Report Belgium.

Constance defended her dissertation in March 2020. As our communication associate and affiliate scientist, she will focus on sharing stories of life in the NCA and will conduct research at Nkuba.

Welcome to the team, Dr. Van de Perre and Dr. Fastré!