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We at Duke are fortunate to have one of the world’s premier schools for environmental science and policy – the
Nicholas School of the Environment. Dean Bill Chameides best explains the school’s mission:
“…….we engage with scienƟsts, governments, industry leaders, conservaƟon pracƟƟoners and communiƟes
throughout the world to address criƟcal issues like climate change, energy, water quality, ecosystem management
and conservaƟon, and human and environmental health…We strive to produce a new breed of environmental
leaders”
We at the Duke Lemur Center are pleased that a team of four Nicholas School students chose to collaborate with
us for their Masters Project. Each student in the program is required to complete a MP for a real world “client”. Our
four students chose to study the teacher training programs in Madagascar that we have been involved with for years
– first through the Madagascar Fauna Group (MFG) at Parc Ivoloina, and now in our own SAVA conservaƟon
iniƟaƟve. The only way to know if
techniques to achieve conservaƟon goals
are working and are having an impact is to
periodically evaluate them. As the teacher
trainings have been developed by the
MFG, evolving over more than a decade,
there is a need to both describe the
current methods, and to take a criƟcal
look at what they are accomplishing.
The Nicholas students, Gina Angiolillo,
Nicole West, Noelle Wyman, and Sanjyot
Sangodkar, had hoped to travel to
Madagascar and observe some of the
trainings in person, but funding did not
materialize. So instead they used
quesƟonnaires, phone and skype
interviews to bridge the distance to
Madagascar. We are hopeful that once
finished, their Masters Project will not only
give us a comprehensive descripƟon of the training that can be referenced and applied by other conservaƟon
projects, but also give us an objecƟve evaluaƟon of the impact of the trainings. In fact the team’s formal project
presentaƟon in early April did just that. We look forward to the finished wriƩen report (80+ pages) which will contain
more details.
Many thanks to Gina, Nicole, Noelle, and Sanjyot for their hard work on this challenging project, and also to their
advisor Dr. Pamela George.
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V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1
Nicholas School students from left: Nicole West, Gina Angiolillo, Noelle
Wyman, and Sanjyot Sangodkar
DUKE CONNECTIONS
Collaborating with the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment
S A V A C O N S E R V A T I O N