Juliana Velez Gomez

Juliana Vélez was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She earned a BSc in Biology from the Universidad de los Andes and a MSc in Biology at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. For her graduate project, she worked at the Landscape Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling Lab (ECOLMOD) to better understand the influence of changing food availability (seasonally and spatially) on the diet and habitat use of lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) in the Colombian Amazon. Currently, she has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship (2017-2021) and the Conservation Sciences Fellowship (2017-2018) from the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota to pursue a Ph.D. in Conservation Sciences. With her Ph.D. research, she aims to improve wildlife management by addressing coupled human and natural systems in the Colombian Orinoco Region. She will collect satellite telemetry and vegetation data that can be used to parameterize models of animal movement and habitat selection to better understand the impact of habitat loss, future changes in land use, and climate change on large terrestrial mammals.