Susie P. Gonzalez

210-999-8406

susie.gonzalez@trinity.edu

SCIENTIST TO DISCUSS WILDLIFE PRESERVATION IN AFRICA

SAN ANTONIO – Wayne Getz, a biomathematician and professor at the University of California at Berkeley, will discuss his research on wildlife preservation in Africa as part of the Distinguished Scientists Lecture Series at Trinity University. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 25, in Laurie Auditorium. Since 1996, Dr. Getz has been chair of the Division of Insect Biology at UC Berkeley. In the last decade, he has been involved in a wide range of animal research, including studies of tuberculosis control in African buffalo, olfactory response patterns in insect brains, and wildlife management in South Africa. He has been instrumental in developing a wildlife monitoring and assessment program in rural areas of South Africa that will operate at the grassroots level of indigenous rural communities. Dr. Getz plans to teach local wildlife managers how to manage their own resources, using established ecological and bioeconomic principles and applicable technology. The title of his lecture at Trinity is “Conservation in Africa: A Partnership Between the Rural and Global Villages.” At the present time, Dr. Getz and his students are conducting a population ecology analysis of census data from a national park in South Africa, in addition to examining the interaction between elephants and vegetation there. He also is leading studies on the best ways to design bird reserves in a South Australian mountain range and on the effects of reintroducing wolves on scavenger complexes in the Yellowstone Park ecosystem. Dr. Getz holds a bachelor of science in mathematics and applied mathematics and a Ph.D. from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, as well as a D.Sc. from the University of Cape Town. He has been a research scientist at the National Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Pretoria and a postdoctoral associate at the College of Forestry and Natural Resources at Colorado State University. He is a fellow of both the California Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1993, he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award for Senior United States Scientists. Doors to Laurie Auditorium will open at 7 p.m. on the day of the lecture. The lecture series is made possible by an endowment gift from Mr. and Mrs. Walter F. Brown of San Antonio. Mr. Brown is a Trinity University Trustee. For more information, contact Trinity’s department of academic affairs at (210) 999-8201.

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Last updated on March 5, 2002 by the Office of Public Relations