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How did you get involved
in conservation work?
What initially brought you
to the Society?

I always thought I would have a career in
academia, doing research and teaching in
evolutionary biology. And that’s how I started—
after finishing my PhD at Cornell, I accepted
a position as an assistant professor at Franklin
& Marshall College. After three years there,
I was contacted by Dr. Pamela Parker, who I
knew because she had been on the faculty at
Cornell when I was a graduate student. She had
started a new program in conservation biology
research at the Society and, along with the
Society’s CEO at the time, Dr. George Rabb,
convinced me that by joining this fledgling
program I could continue to do research in the
areas that interested me (for example, studying
the impacts of declining genetic diversity on
isolated populations of wildlife), and I could do
that work in a setting that contributed directly
to the conservation and management of wildlife
species. That opportunity to contribute to
fundamental science while applying that knowl-
edge to directly protect the natural world was an
opportunity that was too good to pass up.

Bob Lacy, the Society’s senior conservation scientist emeritus, has saved countless species
from potential extinction through his research.

How have you seen conservation work change or evolve
in the last 30 years? How has it stayed the same?

At the time that I was hired by the Society, “conservation biology”—the field of scientific research
focused on understanding and solving the problems that threatened biodiversity—was a very new
concept. In fact, I think that the Society’s department of conservation biology was the first research
department anywhere—at zoos, in universities, or in governmental agencies—that was designated as
a “conservation biology” program. Some scientists certainly had been doing research that they applied
to conservation before then, but the idea that conservation biology would be the main focus of a

30 GATEWAYS | LACY'S LEGACY