Francisco Dallmeier, Wildlife Biologist

Dr. Francisco Dallmeier is one of the world's leading wildlife biologists and an expert on biological diversity. Dallmeier has devoted himself to integrating studies of biodiversity among species and natural resources with conservation and management programs that promote sustainable development. As director of the Smithsonian Institution's Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program (SI/MAB), he has coordinated efforts to educate people around the world on issues of conservation and the preservation of threatened species, while formulating strategies for sustainable use of natural resources in developing countries. As co-designer and trainer for the Smithsonian Environmental Leadership Course, Dallmeier has taught leadership, communication, and negotiation skills that can be used to promote biodiversity conservation.

He is author, co-author, or editor of more than 130 publications, including a remarkable two-volume study of forest biodiversity in the “old” and “new” worlds published in England, a special issue of the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment devoted to the MAB Program’s Peruvian project, and a delightfully illustrated educational book for young people on biodiversity in the rain forest.

Dallmeier earned his B.S. in biology from the Central University of Venezuela and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, also in biology, from Colorado State University. He spends his free time hiking and scuba diving with his wife and two children and participating in projects at his children’s school. He also hones his skills as a professional photographer.

More info:

• Smithsonian CV
• More detailed profile
• Books by Francisco

Lydia Villa-Komaroff, Molecular biologist

Villa-Komaroff is the oldest of six children. She was born and raised in New Mexico; her parents were the first in their respective families to go to college. Her mother’s Spanish ancestors came to the New World with the Conquistadores and settled in Arizona. Her father’s family is from Mexico, descended from Spanish and indigenous Indian people. The Villa family moved several times within New Mexico when she was growing up, finally settling in Santa Fe when Lydia was nine. Her father was a violinist in the Santa Fe orchestra and a teacher of music, math and English at all pre-college levels. Her mother was a social worker for much of her career, but also worked for the state as a registrar. 

Villa-Komaroff’s scientific interests have been many and varied: as a student she was involved with protein synthesis, particularly polio virus. At Harvard, she studied the eggshell protein of the silk worm. Her plan was to use the study of protein synthesis to learn more about the development of the silk worm. At Cold Spring Harbor, she tried to clone the silk moth genome. While this experiment failed, she learned techniques that enabled her to successfully clone insulin in bacteria when she returned to Harvard. When she set up her own lab, Villa-Komaroff studied insulin-related proteins in the brain. She found that “if insulin is made in the brain it is made at very low levels, while insulin growth factors one and two are made abundantly in the brain.” This led to the discovery that IGF2 is a factor in regulating the cell cycle and the advent of cell death in an animal. She also contributed to understanding of the neuropeptides somatostatin and vip. She is now  CEO of Boston-based Cytonome.

Work, commute and extended family permitting, Villa-Komaroff is an amateur photographer. She hopes to broaden her longstanding portraiture to macro-photography. She is also an avid reader of mysteries: “it’s how I relax my mind.”

More info:

• Official Cytonome bio
• American Society for Cell Biology profile

Eloy Rodriguez, Biochemist

From Dr. Rodriguez's bio: "As the James A. Perkins endowed Professor and Research Scientist at Cornell, I have devoted my professional life to the chemical biology and medicinal chemistry and toxicology of natural small molecules and glycoproteins from plants and arthropods that are important in ecological and biological interactions and human and animal health and medicine. 

"In collaboration with Dr. Richard Wrangham at Harvard we established the discipline of zoopharmacognosy (animal self medication with plants) and Chemo-ornithology (chemical ecology of bird-inect-plant interactions) with David Rosane from CUNY. I have developed a new undergraduate course and research program on the pharmacognosy, pharmacology and nutritional biochemistry of natural substance important for the control of diabetes type 2 and breast and pancreatic cancer in underrepresented communities in the US and Mexico.

"I have also devoted considerable time and effort to the training of hundreds of underrepresented undergraduate and graduate minority and majority studetns in the sciences at Cornell and the University of California, Irvine. A plethora of these fine young women and men at Cornell and UCI are now medical doctors, health specialists, research professors, pharmaceutical scientists, biologists and environmental ecologists."

More info:

• Profile at Cornell
• "Not just monkeying around:Professor Eloy Rodriguez watches monkeys for clues to medicinal plants"