Anna Feistner

Anna Feistner is a Conservation Biologist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation and Sustainability. She directs the Center’s Gabon Biodiversity Program and has been based in Gabon for five years. Dr. Feistner has extensive experience working in biodiversity-rich yet economically poor countries and with stakeholders in governments, NGOs, local communities, and the private sector. She has been working in conservation her entire career, from the species to the landscape level (e.g., spearheading research projects to guide species conservation strategies, including for captive breeding and reintroduction). Dr. Feistner comanaged a protected area in the Central African Republic (CAR) and played an important role in the inscription of the Sangha Trinational transboundary conservation complex (CAR, Republic of the Congo, Cameroon) as a Natural World Heritage site. In Madagascar, she led the institutional strengthening of an International Research and Conservation Training Center, working to promote the survival of endangered lemurs and supporting local communities. Dr. Feistner earned an MBA from the Open University, UK, along with a master of science degree and PhD in behavioral primatology from the University of Stirling, Scotland. She can be reached at feistnera@si.edu.