Luke Dollar

Luke Dollar is a National Geographic Explorer and a wildlife biologist with more than 25 years' experience coordinating conservation, research, educational, and development programs. Dollar’s scientific research focuses on carnivores ranging from big cats to Madagascar’s largest carnivore, the fosa (Cryptoprocta ferox), and their ecology, habitat, and conservation threats. More than 50 percent of his overall efforts are concentrated on grassroots education and sustainable employment programs for local people sharing space with Africa’s predators.

Dollar’s efforts have not only yielded a trove of data on carnivore biology and behavior, but his programs have led to the development of scholastic and sustainable business programs benefiting thousands of local subsistence farmers and their children.

He served as Program Director of National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative from 2009 to 2017 and is currently Professor and Chair for the Department of Environment and Sustainability at Catawba College, Adjunct Professor for the Nicholas School at Duke University, and President of Friends of Madagascar, a conservation education NGO building and supporting rural schools throughout Madagascar.

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PDI Keynote Speaker

Dr. Laura Bottomley

Dr. Laura Bottomley has more than 35 years of experience teaching STEM at all levels, pre-K through graduate school, all over the world. Referred to as Dr. B by her students, she engages those same students in bringing STEM activities to places in the world like Rwanda and Puerto Rico.