Nicole Ponta

Nicole likes to be and work on the ground and she truly believes in the value of learning by doing – starting with herself.

For her PhD at ETH Zürich she has been accompanying indigenous hunters in their journeys into the Colombian rainforest, observing their practices and inquiring about their narratives. How can they balance food security and wildlife conservation? Can community wildlife management work in reality for all people involved? These are critical, wicked points of her research.

To tackle them, Nicole uses simulations – whether from wooden tokens or computer code. She has been through the whole process of transformation: from project design, to implementation stage.

Colombia is her home-ground, but she has been building up experience and expertise in different landscapes and contexts. She has taught in Switzerland and Thailand and facilitated a FAO workshop on adaptive wildlife management in Gabon. She holds her master in Ecology and Evolution from ETHZ.

She loves working with her team. Yet, whenever she can, she will make herself nowhere to be found. Mountains are the hint.