News

Prof Amy Dickman will be WildCRU’s Director from January 2022

December 15, 2021

David Macdonald, who founded the WildCRU in 1986 and has been its Director ever since, writes with exciting news: I am delighted to announce that Prof Amy Dickman will become WildCRU’s Director from 1^st January 2022. This transition has been greatly discussed and planned within our team, and of course our WildCRU family extends far and wide. This is an exciting and timely transition: Amy is brilliantly qualified to lead the WildCRU to yet greater contributions to conservation, and she will be ably supported by two deputies, Professors Claudio Sillero and Andrew Loveridge – both widely known for their distinguished conservation careers involving, respectively, lifetimes of work on Ethiopian wolves and lions, and meanwhile Claudio as Course Director of WildCRU’s Diploma course will continue to nurture future cohorts of our famous WildCRU Panthers. Our team of post docs is strong and accomplished, and we have recently recruited a vibrant new generation of graduate students.

As regards my own future, while I am stepping aside as Director I am not retiring – rather, while leaving behind directorial and administrative duties, I have planned a full programme of conservation research for the coming years within WildCRU, and I will also continue with roles in public service, both within and outside the University of Oxford.

As I pass on the Directorship, the WildCRU is in good heart – we have been supported by a marvellous extended family of collaborators and friends around the globe, and that support has contributed to this strong foundation, and I am deeply grateful for it. I hope everyone will share my sense of excitement for WildCRU, for conservation science and conservation practice. There is much to do, but I write now with the strong conviction that the WildCRU will continue to make a positive difference to biodiversity and to people living alongside wildlife.

Amy and I have been working closely to ensure the new phase in WildCRU’s history goes smoothly. Amy is well prepared but surely will face challenges as she lives through her new role, and as always the support of our global network of friends will be vital to WildCRU’s mission. We are convinced that the mission will continue to be as relevant into the future as it has been over the last 35 year of WildCRU since I founded it in 1986, that is, to achieve practical solutions to conservation problems through original scientific research.

I hope you will join with me in wishing Amy, her two distinguished deputies and the whole WildCRU team, every success for the future.

Amy Dickman photographed with David Macdonald (top). Joined by Claudio Sillero and Andrew Loveridge (bottom).