Vivian Páez, PhD

Dr. Vivian Páez is a Colombian conservation biologist who works with amphibian and reptile species, especially freshwater turtles.  She has just retired from the Biology Institute of the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia, where she mentored many undergraduate and graduate thesis students, and saw many of them obtain positions in other Colombian universities, NGOs, and government environmental institutions. She also created the Herpetology Museum of the Universidad de Antioquia, now the third largest biological collection of amphibians and reptiles in the country. She was elected president in 2010 of the Colombian Association of Herpetologists, and while in this role she edited the book Biología y Conservación de las Tortugas Continentales de Colombia. She was also an editor of the 2015 Libro Rojo de Reptiles de Colombia.  At the International level, Vivian has been a long-term member of the Steering Committee of the IUCN Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group, a member of the Review Board of the Turtle Conservation Fund, and more recently also of the Congdon-Dickson Turtle Ecology Fund. She has been an editor for Chelonian Conservation and Biology for many years, and more recently has taken on the role of assistant editor for turtles for Herpetological Conservation and Biology and Revista Latinoamericana de Herpetologia. She also has recently accepted the task of becoming the new IUCN Red List Coordinator of the TFTSG. Vivian is a graduate of the Universidad de los Andes and obtained her Ph.D. from Ohio University.  She has published over 70 scientific articles in her career, many on turtles, and edited three books. She has received both the Sabin Turtle Conservation Prize for her career dedicated to turtle research and conservation, and more recently the Behler Turtle Conservation Award, being the first Latin American recipient of this distinction. She is excited about becoming a member of the board for the Turtle Survival Alliance, especially as a member of its Field Studies Committee, in the hopes of further stimulating conservation efforts for turtles directed at the population level.