Five years ago, I was purifying proteins in a lab, with no idea that I’d one day be heading to Oxford as an early-career snow leopard field biologist. Since then, I’ve built my career across the high mountain ranges of China where snow leopards roam: setting up camera traps, tracking signs on foot, and leading satellite-collaring operations, growing from intern to project lead coordinating carnivore monitoring across snow leopard landscapes.

Along the way, I’ve worked closely with local communities, documenting human-wildlife conflict cases and trying to identify underlying threats the wildlife may face. But too often, our projects have followed the same pattern: move in, collect what we can, and move on — before the findings can turn into anything practical that lasts, for the wildlife or for the people living alongside it.

I’ve come to realize that field experience alone has its limits. I could describe what we observed, but not explain why, or turn it into lasting change. The WildCRU Diploma is my chance to help reform how this work gets done, by pairing my field intuition with rigorous scientific training.

I can’t wait to learn alongside the staff and my fellow Diploma students, and to carry these tools back to the snow leopard land and communities.