Christine Wilkinson

Christine Wilkinson is a conservation biologist, 2022 Schmidt Science Fellow, and a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include multidisciplinary mapping, human-wildlife conflict, carnivore movement ecology, and using participatory methods for more effective and inclusive conservation outcomes. After spending her undergraduate term studying seabird ecology in the northeastern USA and wildlife management in savanna ecosystems of East Africa, she graduated with honors from Cornell University with a B.S. in Natural Resources. Christine has spent the last decade working in conservation biology and natural resource management Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya, in Los Angeles, California, and in the Bay Area, California. She has also served in various capacities as an informal educator, piloting and implementing dynamic programs for teenagers and young adults at the California Academy of Sciences and around East Africa. During her experiences as an educator, she has developed a passion for conducting applied participatory research and for empowering community-created solutions to our world’s conservation challenges.

For her current research, Christine is using remote sensing and GIS analyses in conjunction with participatory mapping to understand landscape permeability for carnivores, the dynamics of livestock predation instances and perceived human-hyena conflict risk, and the intersection between human and carnivore resource needs in and around Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya. Christine is currently a National Science Foundation fellow and National Geographic Explorer, and has been a UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellow and a Rocca Dissertation Fellow. In her spare time, she teaches and plays taiko in San Francisco. Through these opportunities and experiences, Christine has learned to value numerous ways of knowing and is keen to elevate and integrate a variety of perspectives for resilient and socially just environmental outcomes.