Dr. Aristide Takoukam Kamla

Aristide Takoukam Kamla graduated his Ph.D in the field of Veterinary Medical Sciences at the University of Florida in 2019. He received his Bachelor’ and Master’s degrees in the field of Animal Biology at the University of Dschang in 2008 and 2011 respectively. He is currently serving as the President for the African Marine Mammal Conservation Organization (AMMCO), a non-profit organization he founded in 2014 with the mission to conduct research and conservation of large aquatic animal species and their habitats. Between 2010 and 2014 He served consecutively as ecology assistant, monitoring and evaluation lead and project manager at the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (GVFI), known today as METABIOTA. Dr. Takoukam Kamla was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship, the Beinecke African Scholarship, and the Wildlife Conservation Network Scholarship in 2014, 2015 and 2017 respectively. He received an award of the Excellence in Doctoral Studies from the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida in 2020 and the certificate of outstanding merit in the same school in 2015. In 2015, in response to the scarcity of data pertaining to most threatened aquatic marine species in Cameroon, Dr. Takoukam Kamla developed a mobile App called SIREN and organized a network of fishermen who use it to report opportunistic sightings of these species. Dr. Takoukam Kamla is member of the IUCN African Manatee Specialist Group, as well as the Society for Marine Mammalogy and the Society for Conservation Biology. He is the Regional Vice-Chair for the Atlantic Africa Region of the IUCN Species Survival Commission for the Marine Turtles Specialist Group. Aristide Takoukam Kamla was born in Douala, Cameroon, Central Africa. He grew up in the West Region of Cameroon, in a small town called Dschang