Leeanne E. Alonso, Ph.D.

Affiliated Faculty, SERC/Earth Sciences
Conservation International, Washington, D.C., Vice President,
Field Assessment, Research and Monitoring Department,
Senior Director of Rapid Assessment Program

Dr. Leeanne Alonso is Vice-President of Field Assessment, Research and Monitoring in Conservation International’s Center for Applied Biodiversity Science. For the past six years, Leeanne has overseen the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP), an innovative program that employs teams of expert scientists to rapidly collect biological information needed for conservation action in unexplored tropical areas. RAP teams document, and help protect, the biodiversity of little known areas around the world. Fourteen years and 48 RAP surveys later, RAP scientists have discovered hundreds of new plant and animal species and provided key biological data on ecosystems from Papua New Guinea to Peru. Many of these sites have received increased protection due to RAP’s findings. Dr. Alonso’s research interests focus on tropical ecology and ants. She has studied the diversity, ecology, and behavior of ants in Central and South America, Asia, and Africa. Her doctoral research concentrated on the interactions between ants and plants throughout the Neotropics. Leeanne has extensively studied the imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) in the southern United States and has published works on the ecology and biological control of this pest species. She co-edited Ants: Standard Methods for Measuring and Montoring Biodiversity, which has become the standard for sampling and monitoring ants. Dr. Alonso received a Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal arts and a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from the University of Texas at Austin. She earned her doctorate in biology from Harvard University, working with Dr. E.O. Wilson. She is a member of the Association for Tropical Biology, the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI), the Society for Conservation Biology, and the Ecological Society of America. However, her biggest challenge is as the mother of identical twin boys, Miguel and Antonio. She has already begun training them to be future RAP team members!