Patricia Majluf

Patricia Majluf is a conservation biologist and the founder and current director of the Conservation Biology Unit (CBU) and of the Center for Environmental Sustainability (CSA) of the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) in Lima, Peru. She obtained her degree in biology at UPCH in 1980 and a Ph.D. in zoology at the University of Cambridge in 1988.  Since 1982, she has directed the longest-running research program in coastal Peru, studying the impacts of El Niño and fisheries on marine wildlife populations.  From 1996 she has led marine conservation efforts in Peru, promoting the establishment of marine protected areas and developing public awareness of the large-scale ecosystemic and socioeconomic impacts of the industrial anchovy fisheries and other extractive industries to the Humboldt Upwelling System. 

For her work in marine conservation, she received the Charlotte Wyman Trust Award for Women in Conservation (1993-96), the Lindbergh Award (1996), the first CAMBIE Award in Peru (2002), and, in 2006, the Whitley Gold Award and the Natasha and George Duffield Award from the Whitley Fund for Nature.

After working for twenty years as Associate Conservation Researcher for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Peru (1982-2002) and a brief stint as Peru Program Director for Conservation International (2003), Patricia Majluf returned full time to UPCH at the end of 2003 to develop a Conservation Biology Program, which has resulted in the establishment of the CBU in 2003 and the CSA in 2006.