AN ALLIANCE OF CHANGE-MAKERS
Committed to a Higher Standard of Global Practice
Elizabeth Walker, MA/United States
Founder, Principal & Managing Director
Elizabeth is the Founder, author and creative force behind TranscendDiscipline.com and its alliance of award-winning practitioners committed to a new, higher standard of international practice. She works independently as an Executive Strategist and Advisor, bringing her unique inspiration and approach to organizations and teams around the world seeking high-impact improvements to leadership and on-the-ground performance. She is the author of
“A Practitioner’s Case for Working Differently,” a groundbreaking, open-source examination and appeal for trans-disciplinary practice. She is a boots-on-the-ground practitioner with 25+ years of experience in more than 40 countries across 5 continents as a humanitarian aid worker, global development professional, and conservationist. She has held executive appointments with leading international nonprofits, including as Vice President of Global Programs and Executive Director responsible for the strategic direction and global oversight of an organization's work, its engagement with government, corporate and nonprofit partners, its span of country offices around the world, its representation before the diplomatic, business and donor communities, and its recruitment and support of large, multi-disciplinary teams. She has worked with Fauna & Flora International, Counterpart International, CARE, International Rescue Committee, PLAN, Relief International and USAID. She has led sensitive human rights investigations for the US State Department, led field deployment of USAID foreign disaster assistance response teams, served in Geneva as a Senior Policy Advisor to the UN, and been appointed expert advisor on civil-military affairs to the US Department of Defense. A two-time recipient of USAID's highest performance distinction, Elizabeth has advised Ambassadors, UN Heads of Mission, Assistant Secretaries, Generals, Admirals and Government Ministers on the direction and scope of international aid efforts. She holds degrees with honors from Harvard University, the Tufts School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Elizabeth is a proud mom and lives with her family in southern Utah where she sits on several community and nonprofit boards, volunteers as a medic and wildland firefighter, serves as a search and rescue tracker and, when not wrinkling pages in her passport, shares her love for the breathtaking American west by guiding into the redrock wilderness. For more on Elizabeth's global work, please see our Board bios below and don't miss the selection of testimonials offered to her impact around the world.
Watch Elizabeth speak about her vision and the team's pioneering work on launch!
Laly Lichtenfeld, PhD/Tanzania
Founding Affiliate
Laly is a woman with a passion for Africa and for conservation. Residing in Tanzania, Laly is the Co-Founder and CEO of the African People & Wildlife Fund (www.africanpeoplewildlife.org), an internationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to helping rural communities conserve and benefit from their wildlife and natural resources. Laly first traveled to the continent with the National Outdoor Leadership School in 1992. Moved by the remarkable wildlife, cultures and landscapes of East Africa, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to evaluate a community-based conservation project in southern Kenya. Laly went on to receive her Ph.D. from Yale University for novel research combining wildlife ecology and social ecology in an interdisciplinary study of human-lion relationships, interactions and conflicts on the Maasai Steppe of Northern Tanzania. Today, with 20 years of on-the-ground experience in East African wildlife conservation, Laly specializes in human-wildlife conflict prevention, species conservation focusing on lions and other big cats, community empowerment and engagement in natural resource management, conservation education, and the development of conservation incentives for rural people. Laly is a Distinguished Alumni of the Yale Tropical Resources Institute, a National Geographic Explorer, six-time National Geographic Big Cats Initiative grantee, and an invited member of the Clinton Global Initiative. She is also the recipient of the Explorers Club 2016 Lowell Thomas Award, honoring her accomplishments in exploration, field research and education.
Watch a video of Laly's inspiring work in Tanzania's Maasai Steppe, and a primetime profile released on CNN Inside Africa!
Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, DVM/Uganda
Founding Affiliate
In the legacy of the late Dian Fossey, Gladys is one of the leading conservationists and scientists working to save the critically endangered mountain gorillas of East Africa. She is the Founder and CEO of Conservation Through Public Health (www.ctph.org), a grassroots nonprofit working to protect mountain gorillas across their ranges in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her work to understand and reduce disease transmission between human and gorilla populations and improve the quality of care and support available to communities living in proximity to protected areas has earned her worldwide notoriety. With training from the University of London’s Royal Veterinary College, she established the first veterinary unit within the Uganda Wildlife Authority in the 1990s and pioneered the first wildlife translocations in her native country of Uganda. She has been recognized with numerous awards from Africa to the US, including the San Diego Zoo’s “Conservation in Action Award,” the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship, and CEO Communications Africa’s Most Influential Women in Business and Government Award. Gladys is an elected member of the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a leading global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. A powerful speaker on the interconnectedness of all species and the human links to our most endangered wildlife, she has been featured in documentary specials for the BBC, National Geographic, PBS Frontline World, and Animal Planet. Gladys gave the 2016 Tusk address at London's Royal Geographical Society and was recently named a 2018 National Geographic Explorer.
Watch an interview with Gladys about her trailblazing work in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest on CNN World!
Tom Lalampaa, MBA/Kenya
Founding Affiliate
Tom is the CEO of Northern Rangelands Trust (www.nrt-kenya.org), a pioneering umbrella organization supporting 27 community conservancies across ten counties in Kenya. He serves as well as the Chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association. Tom is a Samburu who could have followed in the pastoralist footsteps of his family and neighbors but, with the support of his entire community, completed a BA, MA and MBA at the University of Nairobi. Tom serves as the Vice Chairman of the Wildlife Security Task Force formed by the Government of Kenya to recommend improvements to wildlife security. He has testified before the US Congress and, in September 2013, was awarded the inaugural Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa, presented by The Patron His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge at a ceremony in London. The award recognized his outstanding contribution to northern Kenya’s communities and wildlife. Tom is also the recipient of Stanford University's prestigious 2016 Bright Award for his significant contributions to global sustainability.
Watch an interview with Tom after winning the inaugural Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa and a video of his remarkable work in the Kenyan Rangelands!
Alasdair Harris, PhD/United Kingdom
Affiliate
Al is the Founder and Executive Director of Blue Ventures (www.blueventures.org), an award-winning marine conservation organization and social enterprise working with coastal communities in Madagascar, Timor-Leste and Belize. Driven by a passion to demonstrate that effective marine conservation requires pragmatic, entrepreneurial and locally-led approaches to marine and fisheries management, he is responsible for leading an interdisciplinary team of over 190 colleagues worldwide. His work focuses on developing scalable solutions to environmental challenges through approaches that make marine conservation make economic sense to coastal communities. Recognized internationally for his pathbreaking work, Al is a TED Fellow, an Ashoka Fellow, and winner of the Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Award and the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Al holds a PhD in tropical marine ecology and an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Edinburgh.
Watch the Skoll Foundation's film on Al and his groundbreaking work that debuted at the 2015 Skoll Awards Ceremony!
Founding Principals & Affiliates
Bwindi, Uganda
Inaugural Board of Directors
Theresa Crawford/Washington, DC
Director
Theresa is an award-winning journalist and media professional with extensive experience in local and network news, sports and entertainment, corporate communications and advertising. Her expertise additionally includes publicity and marketing for higher education, healthcare and nonprofit organizations. She was the Executive Producer of Media Relations and Director of Broadcast Publicity for CBS Entertainment and CBS Sports, as well as Producer for CBS News/New York. She worked as well as Director of Electronic Communications for Lockheed Martin. She began her career in television news in Baltimore, MD and Harrisburg, PA as a reporter, editor, photographer, producer and writer. As a strategic communicator and creative storyteller, Theresa's many recognitions include those from the International Television Association, New York Festivals, Telly, US International Film and Video, Associated Press and American Bar Association. Theresa is a past recipient of the prestigious George Polk Award for Journalism.
Raymond Short/New York
Director
Ray is an international development practitioner with globally-recognized expertise in the application of innovative information and communications technologies supporting social, economic and political development. He served as Chief of Party and Resident Program Director for leading international organizations in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southern and Central Africa, including Counterpart International, the National Democratic Institute, and Development Alternatives, Inc. He led complex portfolios spanning partners and countries, as well as the public and private sectors, aimed at improving information and technology access for civil society organizations, media, parliaments, provincial assemblies and activists. He is the recipient of USAID's prestigious Development 2.0 Challenge Award for development of UNICEF's open-source system for child nutrition surveillance in Southern Africa. Ray was Phi Beta Kappa at Indiana University and holds an advanced degree in international economic and political development from Columbia University.
Elizabeth Walker/Southern Utah
President
Elizabeth launched TranscendDiscipline.com as an appeal to revolutionize global practice and, along with it, founded the world's first alliance of award-winning practitioners committed to a new, higher standard of international practice. An energetic and truly multidisciplinary leader, Elizabeth has worked in 40+ countries across 5 continents as a humanitarian aid worker, global development practitioner, and conservationist. She has worked extensively behind conflict lines around the world, including in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh and Darfur. She has led organizations and teams across borders during famine and refugee emergencies, in camps and internally displaced settlements, within protected landscapes and wildlife conservancies, and in the aftermath of natural disasters. She has led $200M+ in humanitarian and development work with USAID, Department of State, UN, EU, DFID, AUSAID and foundation funding for leading international nonprofits. She has served several times in Africa, Central Asia and the Balkans as the senior in-country USAID representative, twice receiving the agency's highest distinction for her front-line leadership of emergency humanitarian response efforts. She has been appointed Senior Policy Advisor to the UN, led sensitive human rights investigations for the US Department of State, and run a civil-military think tank for the US Department of Defense that trains international peacekeepers. Elizabeth has equally broken ground in the conservation space as a strategic advisor and partner to leading-edge conservation organizations, including Fauna & Flora International US (now Wild Earth Allies), African People & Wildlife, Northern Rangelands Trust, and Conservation through Public Health. She is a frequently invited speaker at international forums, recognized for exciting thought leadership, inspiring breakthrough innovation, and for her original contributions at the intersection of disciplines. Elizabeth holds degrees with honors from Harvard University, the Tufts School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Elizabeth Speaks on Launch
