UA Student Selected by National Geographic as Emerging Explorer
Thandiwe Mweetwa, currently pursuing a master's degree in natural resources conservation at the UA, has spent time in Zambia to study lion populations there.

University Relations – Communications
June 2, 2016

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Thandiwe Mweetwa
Thandiwe Mweetwa (Photo: National Geographic Society)


The National Geographic Society has announced that University of Arizona graduate student Thandiwe Mweetwa is part of its 2016 class of Emerging Explorers, a group of 13 individuals from around the globe whose unconventional thinking and innovations are changing the world for the better.

Mweetwa, currently pursuing a master's degree in natural resources conservation at the UA, has spent time in Zambia to study lion populations there. She was 12 when she moved from a small town in southern Zambia to a rural area up north. Her parents had died within two years of each other, and she went to live with her uncle in her mother’s home village of Mfuwe. She found herself in a small, red-brick house with no running water or electricity, surrounded in nearby buildings by extended family.

The move introduced her to wildlife she had heard about in stories from her mother: baboons, vervet monkeys, buffalo and elephants. A painful transition gave way to a new passion and career, and now she is doing crucial research to help save lions in Zambia's Luangwa River Valley.

The river valley is "an amazing place," Mweetwa says. "There are still great densities of game. For example, it holds Zambia’s biggest lion population, its largest leopard population, its second-largest dog population. So ecologically it’s a key area ... important in the country, but also in the region. Most of it has huge areas of land that can be used for conservation, but it’s also facing most of the environmental problems that you see in many parts — issues to do with human encroachment."

The Emerging Explorers Program recognizes and supports uniquely gifted and inspiring scientists, conservationists and innovators who are at the forefront of discovery, adventure and global problem-solving while still early in their careers. Each Emerging Explorer receives a $10,000 award to aid further research and exploration.

The other 2016 Emerging Explorers are:

  • Asha de Vos, marine biologist and ocean educator, Sri Lanka
  • Marina Elliott, biological anthropologist, Canada
  • Gao Yufang, conservationist, China
  • Panut Hadisiswoyo, conservationist, Indonesia
  • Naftali Honig, wildlife crime investigator, U.S.
  • Arthur Huang, engineer, Taiwan
  • Jedidah Isler, observational astrophysicist, U.S.
  • Yukinori Kawae, archaeologist and Egyptologist, Japan
  • David Lang, maker and writer, U.S.
  • Jeffrey Marlow, geobiologist, writer and educator, U.S.
  • Wasfia Nazreen, mountaineer, activist and educator, Bangladesh
  • Genevieve von Petzinger, paleoanthropologist, Canada

National Geographic Emerging Explorers are selected to represent diverse fields. Their backgrounds vary from anthropology, archaeology, photography, space exploration, earth sciences and cartography to the worlds of technology, conservation and the arts.

Extra info

More about Thandiwe Mweetwa and the 2016 Emerging Explorers can be found here

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