Human-tiger conflict is one of the most urgent issues facing tiger conservation today. Gendered divisions of labor place men and women who depend on forests where tigers live for subsistence at different risks for a tiger attack. Sam received her B.S. in Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology and her M.S. in Natural Resource Sciences and Management from the University of Minnesota and has worked in Nepal for the past five years with local communities and NGOs on human-tiger conflict issues. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW-Madison. Her work connects the traditionally separated disciplines of biological conservation, gender studies, and political ecology to holistically address and mitigate human-tiger conflicts.
Tracy is a Sociology PhD candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder and holds a Master’s in International Studies. Her research areas include gender, human rights, development, and transitional justice in Nepal. As a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellow, Tracy will examine how Nepal’s ongoing transitional justice process operates as a site through which gendered social memory is shaped and contested in the post-conflict society. Tracy’s previous research in Nepal has explored the unintended local consequences of post-earthquake development, and the intersectional experiences of widows during and after the 2015 earthquakes. Prior to academia, Tracy worked at the Enough Project in Washington D.C. on international human rights policy and advocacy issues, and in Kathmandu, Nepal as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Crisis Management Studies.