Rachel Neugarten ’04

For most of us, seeing a snow leopard on the way to work could be awe inspiring or panic- inducing, depending on your fondness for carnivorous big cats. But for Rachel Neugarten ’04, it’s a regular part of the walk to her office at the Bronx Zoo.

A conservation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, Neugarten helps the nonprofit figure out how to best protect biodiversity around the world. Using spatial analysis, remote sensing and other research methods, she helps identify and map the most important places for biodiversity conservation, which informs how the organization shapes policy and field-based efforts.

“It’s both social science and natural science,” she says. “My job is quite diverse on a day-to-day basis, but the overall theme is doing scientific research to help the people working on the ground.”

Neugarten was a nature lover from a young age. She remembers going to the American Museum of Natural History and roaming the halls of dioramas with a “childlike sense of wonder.” But, as much as she was captivated by the realistic, large animal replicas, she was more interested in the details, like the bugs delicately placed on a plant leaf. That fascination continues to fuel her passion for her work.

“I still love getting on the ground or in the water to see the places we are working to conserve,” Neugarten says. “When you’re going to Madagascar, you expect to see lemurs, but you don’t necessarily expect to see chameleons that are the size of your pinky when they’re fully grown. That sense of discovery is still the thing that motivates me and inspires me.”

Some of her first field experiences happened as an environmental biology student at the College, where she explored ecosystems in Arizona, Costa Rica and Venezuela. Those programs, Neugarten says, have contributed to her success as a “generalist” in the world of ecology.

“Columbia set me up very well. I took classes in every- thing from environmental law and policy to the hard sciences and ecology,” she says. “The experience was transformative.”

— Emily Driehaus