Jorge Ahumada

Roles: Special Guest

Dr. Jorge ​A. ​Ahumada​’s work with Conservation International ​features the use of camera traps ​and the ​Wildlife Picture Index​ ​​to monitor vertebrates.​ He is ​interest​ed​​ in applying mathematical models to solve applied conservation problems ​through projects that vary from studying the impacts of climate change on disease and biodiversity to incorporating the effects of temperature and rainfall on models of disease-transmitting carriers. ​​​​​​​​Jorge is the Senior Wildlife Conservation Scientist with Conservation International’s Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science. A native of Colombia and an ecologist by training, Jorge worked as an Associate Professor at Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, where he founded a research lab on population and community ecology of cloud forests before joining Conservation International​. In 2000, he came back to the US to work on applied projects, including models of malaria transmission in Hawaiian birds and tropical tree dynamics. Jorge has extensive field, quantitative and theoretical expertise in ecology and conservation, and he is interested in the​ application of quantitative methods to measure and manage natural capital.