Samantha Zwicker (MS, PhD) is a tropical ecologist and wildlife rehabilitation specialist, as well as the founder and co-director of Hoja Nueva (est. 2015). Hoja Nueva is a leading conservation organization confronting the multifaceted threats to the biodiversity of the Peruvian Amazon through rewilding programs, ecological research, and applied conservation. Sam has a master's degree in conservation ecology, a diploma in nonprofit management, and a PhD in quantitative ecology from the University of Washington. She has also been a Panthera Small Cat Action Fund Grantee, a Wild Felid Legacy Scholar, and an NIH Global Health Fellow. In addition to spearheading Hoja Nueva’s projects within the Amazonian rainforests and communities of Madre de Dios, Peru, Sam is also investigating neotropical felid population dynamics, assessing the effects of human impact on threatened mammals using camera trapping, and describing interspecific competition and spatiotemporal overlap between sympatric carnivores. Sam is extremely passionate about dismantling the illicit pet trade, returning individual animals to the wild, and preserving wild populations, and plans to dedicate her life to this work throughout the neotropics. When Sam isn't analyzing camera trap data or walking our young cats, you'll catch her rescuing street dogs, making Mexican food, or sleeping!