Lü Zhi is aProfessor of Conservation Biology in Peking University , is currently heading Conservation International’s China Program. She began her interests in conservation with a long-term extensive field research on the Giant Panda between 1985 and 1992. Then she spent 3 years at NIH to study conservation genetics. Both the field research and the genetic study provided insights to the species natural history and implication to conservation strategy.

Between 1995 and 2000, she became a program officer for WWF China , in charge of species and protected areas program, emphasized panda conservation and integrated conservation and development projects. She started to work in Tibet since 1996 to survey wildlife, evaluation conservation status, and document the trend of natural system and cultural and social changes. She established WWF’s Tibet Program.

In 2000, she spent a year on a scholarship at Harvard’s Center for Population and Development Studies. And the following year, she became a visiting professor to teach biodiversity conservation and management at Yale School of Forestry and Environment.

In 2002, she established CI’s China Program Office in Beijing , focusing on Southwest China Biodiversity Hotspot. CI’s work in China ranges from grassroots NGO capacity building, field demonstration of conservation projects based in communities and nature reserves, to innovative approaches that integrating new scientific knowledge, new policy and new market to solve the complex conservation issues, as well as the policy level work that aims to assist the country to reduce its development footprints.

She also leads the Peking University ’s Conservation Biology Program that emphasizes long term multiple disciplinary researches on biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics, their interrelationship with human activities and policies in western China . For a long time, she has been active in conservation education and capacity building.

She holds adjunct positions including an adjunct professorship at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; Chair for IUCN SSC Panda Expert Group under Bear Specialist Group; and member of China ’s National Youth Association. Her work is widely acknowledged and published in scientific publications such as Science and Nature. Her popular articles and photographs also appeared in magazines such National Geographic. She was rewarded as “Top Ten Young Professionals of the Year” of China in 1998, and China ’s “Women in Science” in 2005. She frequently appears on Chinese and international media to speak on behalf of China ’s nature conservation. In 1999, she was featured in the New York Times on PR China’s fiftieth anniversary as one of six young Chinese to watch.