Wildlife biologist Carol Rizkalla has always had a passion for animals. As a young girl in Singapore, she remembers the moment she refused to eat them. 'I remember passing a stall in the 5th grade which had a turtle floating in an aquarium, waiting to become turtle soup. I knew turtles had long been part of the Asian diet, but from that moment, I knew I would become a vegetarian.'  

 

Not only does Rizkalla not eat animals, she has also devoted her professional life to conserving their habitats and reintroducing them into the wild. Her passion has taken her from a marine biology course in Australia and New Zealand to researching African wildlife on a ranch in Kenya. After leaving Singapore, she became more interested in environmental policy and sustainable development. She earned concurrent undergraduate degrees at the University of Richmond: B.S. Biology and B.A. Political Science.

 

Continuing on for her master's degree at Duke University, Rizkalla was offered the chance to intern at Disney's Animal Kingdom, focusing her time on research in conservation biology, particularly in zoos and captive breeding. This internship led to a job offer after graduation. Rizkalla spent the next two years at the Animal Kingdom, researching African elephant communication and behavior.

 

Her interest in conservation grew, and she knew that she'd need further schooling to continue in this very specific field of research. Purdue University accepted her into their PhD program, and she began researching the effects of forest fragmentation on small mammals.

 

Rizkalla was nearly finished with her dissertation when she was invited back to the Animal Kingdom in spring 2007. She now spends her time on 8500 acres of Walt Disney World conservation area. She monitors bird and butterfly populations, and is beginning an inventory of the amphibians and reptiles on the property.

 

A major crowd-pleaser on the Disney's Vero Beach resort property is the research Rizkalla and her colleagues do with sea turtle nesting. She explains, 'We mark nests every morning after they are laid. About two months later, after they hatch, we dig up the nest and count the eggs to determine the hatch success rate. Sometimes there are still a couple of hatchlings that couldn't dig their way out. We always draw a crowd as we help them to the ocean.'

 

Rizkalla spends a part of her day educating Disney guests about her work, as the lab at the Disney resort is 'on show,' meaning that guests can see the scientists at work.