Spotlight on: Mr. Noam Ben-Moshe

My love for nature and passion for conservation has accompanied me throughout my life. Growing up at the edge of urban Jerusalem, I was exposed to the beauty of the Judean hills and wildlife watching, catching lizards and snakes, and hiking became my main interests as a kid. During childhood I spent the school-time working as an animal caretaker at the Jerusalem Zoo, while also participating and guiding tours through the SPNI. I continued on to a BSc and MSc in Ecology and Marine Biology, respectively, through Ben Gurion University and spent a couple of years working at various conservation and eco-tourism projects in Central America and South-East Asia. In the past 10 years I have worked as an environmental consultant at various agencies and organizations on a wide array of topics; restoration of damaged habitats, human-wildlife conflicts, ecological inputs in planning and environmental-educational schemes. During this time, I witnessed (what I see) as a huge gap between decision makers, organizations who deal with conservation and scientists, and the need for people who "speak all languages" to bridge between them and put conservation in the front - without neglecting human needs. Recently, I started my Ph.D. at Tel Aviv University in the Dr. Takuya Iwamura's Spatial Ecology lab, studying the dispersion patterns of rock hyraxes in Israel and its implications to the spread of Leishmaniasis, a subject that incorporates all of these gaps.

Contact Noam here