Alan Rabinowitz Dr. Alan Rabinowitz graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1981 with an M.S. in zoology and a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology. He is currently the Director of the Science and Exploration Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society based at the Bronx Zoo in New York.  His goal in life, and the mission of the Science and Exploration Program, is to find and survey the world's last wild places, with the intention of saving as much land in protected areas as he can and securing homes for some of the world's most endangered large mammals.  Dr. Rabinowitz has traveled extensively, concentrating his research efforts in places such as Belize, Borneo, Taiwan, Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar (Burma). He has studied jaguars, clouded leopards, Asiatic leopards, tigers, Sumatran rhinos and other large mammal species. In 1985, his work in Belize resulted in the world's first jaguar sanctuary at Cockscomb Basin and helped start the now prosperous ecotourism industry in the country. Subsequent surveys of the clouded leopard in Taiwan resulted in the establishment of Tawu Mountain Nature Reserve, the country's largest protected area and last piece of intact lowland forest. His work in Thailand between 1987 and 1993 resulted in the first field research on IndoChinese tigers, Asiatic leopards, and leopard cats, in what was to become the region's first World Heritage Site. During the 1990s, Rabinowitz's work in Myanmar led to the creation of a number of new protected areas: the country's first marine national park, the country's first and largest Himalayan national park, the country's largest wildlife sanctuary, and the world's largest tiger reserve. He also masterminded the creation of the Northern Forest Complex in Myanmar, a set of four contiguous protected areas, more than 30,000 km2, that comprise one of the wildest, most pristine sets of habitats left in the world. Dubbed the "Indiana Jones" of wildlife science by The New York Times, Dr. Rabinowitz's research and explorations over the last decade have taken him to rugged, unexplored mountain ranges in the Annamite Mountains between Laos and Vietnam, to the unexplored eastern edge of the Himalayan Mountains of northern Myanmar, and to a little-known, malaria-filled valley along the border with India that was once dubbed "the valley of death." In northern Myanmar, Dr. Rabinowitz discovered the leaf deer, a new species to science and the second smallest, most primitive deer in the world. He also made contact with the Taron, a group of Mongoloid pygmies, the only true pygmoid group of Asian ancestry in the world. Out of contact with the outside world since they were first discovered and studied in the 1950s and early 1960s, they are now near extinction, in part by their own design. Dr. Rabinowitz has published over 75 scientific and popular articles and six books. His first two books, Jaguar and Chasing the Dragon's Tail, are popular accounts of his adventures in Belize and Thailand. His most recent popular book, Beyond the Last Village, takes the reader on an intensely personal journey through his adventures, explorations, and discoveries in Myanmar. He has also published the Wildlife Field Research and Conservation Training Manual that has been translated into seven languages; he has co-published The Wild Cats of Thailand in the Thai language with his wife Salisa; and he has edited a new classic volume in conservation biology titled People and Wildlife: Conflict or Coexistence? At the present time, Dr. Rabinowitz is firmly committed to the success of two incredibly important long-term objectives: establishing and securing a contiguous wild jaguar corridor on public and private lands ranging from Mexico to Argentina; and setting up the world's largest tiger reserve, an area nearly the size of Vermont, in the Hukaung Valley of northern Myanmar, that will benefit both people and wildlife. Dr. Rabinowitz's ground-breaking work with jaguars, as well as his personal hurdles, are documented in an award-winning National Geographic Television Special first aired in November 2003 on PBS called In Search of the Jaguar. His latest accomplishment, setting up the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve in Myanmar, can be read about in the April 2004 issue of National Geographic Magazine.