The Importance of Everything: National Geographic explorer gives lecture at UW-Whitewater

February 03, 2015

A Fulbright Scholar and National Science Foundation Fellow -- who is fighting for the rights of animals around the world -- will give a free public lecture at UW-Whitewater.

The speaker, Mireya Mayor, will appear at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 16, at Young Auditorium. Her speech is part of the Contemporary Issues Lecture Series sponsored by the College of Letters and Sciences.

The lecture is titled "The Importance of Everything: The Interconnectedness of Wildlife, Humankind, and Our Shared Habitat in Protecting the Planet."

Mayor divides her time between research in Madagascar and appearing as a correspondent on the National Geographic Ultimate Explorer television series. She has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Stony Brook University in New York.

"Mayor has been referred to in many ways: primatologist, anthropologist, wildlife expert, conservationist, explorer and female Indiana Jones," said Susan Johnson, assistant dean for student success in the College of Letters and Sciences and coordinator for the lecture series. "Her presentation at UW-Whitewater will tie all of these together as she recounts her groundbreaking work in Madagascar that led to the discovery of a new species and the conservation efforts that followed."

Mayor studies rare primates in the wild throughout the world and she works with local populations on species conservation.

In 2000, her work led to the discovery of a new species of mouse lemur in Madagascar. The declaration of its habitat as a national park and the creation of a $50 million conservation trust fund resulted from the discovery.

Mayor is the fourth speaker in the 2014-15 lecture series at UW-Whitewater. For more information on the lecture series, visit this link.

-- Written by Jonathan Fera