Staff, Students & Associates

Conservation Biology Masters Students (2012/13)

Lea Cohen

Email: lea.cohen@uct.ac.za

Lea was born in California and has spent most of her life in Berkeley. In 2011 she completed her BA in Geography from the University of California, Los Angeles with a particular focus on biogeography and wildlife conservation. As an undergraduate Lea studied abroad twice: studying wildlife conservation in the Eastern Cape of South Africa and volunteering at a desert nature reserve in Israel. She has always been interested in wildlife and especially birds, and since graduating has assisted a PhD student with her field research on birds of the Peruvian Amazon. Lea has also recently travelled through southern Africa and is of the opinion that the birds here are more impressive than those in the western hemisphere. Lea hopes that the Conservation Biology course will give her the formal training necessary to become a successful conservation biologist, and particularly hopes to have a career in the conservation of seabirds and shorebirds. In her spare time, Lea enjoys sailing, hiking, and bird watching. She hopes to stay in Africa for quite some time.

Mini-thesis

Environmental conditions, foraging effort, and chick growth in Cape Gannets: insight from a long-term study (Supervisor: Peter Ryan)