Shafkat Khan received his PhD from UGA’s Odum School of Ecology in 2016 (advisor: Jacqueline Mohan). His fieldwork took him to the mountains of Costa Rica, and forests of the eastern US. After graduation, Shafkat worked with Project Dragonfly, an interdisciplinary conservation master’s program based at Miami University, Ohio. He has taught field courses in tropical biology, traditional ecological knowledge and religion-based conservation in Guyana, Baja California of Mexico, and Western Ghats of India. Shafkat feels privileged to be brought up in Bangladesh and then having lived in Costa Rica. His non-Western background informs him to challenge fortress and colonial practices in ecological conservation. Shafkat has taken pride in supporting and mentoring a group of underrepresented minority conservation professionals and graduate students in 2020-2021. Shafkat currently serves as the Director of Conservation with the Pittsburgh Zoo and Botanical Garden.