Born and raised in Mexico in a bicultural family: Spanish and Mexican. Elisa Sandoval studied biology at the University of Guadalajara (Mexico). Her professional practices were in ECOSUR, Campeche, México, to study tapirs in the Mayan Rainforest. Subsequently, Elisa became a volunteer in the Kalahari Meerkat Project in South Africa and lead a publication of a children’s book to send the message that meerkats live better in the wild and not as pets. This book was published in several languages in South Africa.

Since 2016, Elisa is part of an NGO from Spain called “Asociacion Biomas” that organises extra curricular courses to educate for conservation. She lead a course in the Mayan Rainforest.

In 2018, Elisa joined WildCRU as a Panther were she worked for her Diploma Project with Ethiopian wolves behavioural data from EWCP.

In 2019, Elisa started her DPhil supervised by Andrew Loveridge, Egil Droge, Marion Valeix and Esther van der Meer.

In 2024, she finished her DPhil successfully with a thesis entitled: “Impact of interspecific competition on African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) in an ecosystem with artificial perennial water provision”. Her fieldwork was in collaboration with Painted Dog Conservation (NGO in Zimbabwe). Currently, Elisa is a postdoc in WildCRU, working in collaboration with ZIMPARKS (government of ZImbabwe) and other stakeholders to formulate a water management policy for Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.

Elisa’s main interests are research on behavioural ecology and conservation of carnivores and how the translation of that research can impact positively both wildlife and society.