Ignacio Vilchis

Growing up surfing in Baja California and Southern California, I spent most of my life in or around the Pacific Ocean. I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of San Diego, my first graduate program at the Universidad Catolica de Chile, earned my PhD at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla California, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in conservation biology with the Wildlife Health Center at the University of California Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine. I have spent thousands of hours surveying underwater in kelp forests in California and Chile, and months at sea studying tropical and temperate seabirds in open oceans off the Hawaiian archipelago, Clipperton Atoll, Malpelo Island, Galapagos Islands, British Columbia and Puget Sound. Currently, I am an Associate Director in the Applied Animal Ecology division at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. In this role, I implement and oversee conservation research of a number of endangered bird species.

June 2016