Secretariat

Johannes has been leading the GRASP Secretariat since 2016. He has a Diploma degree in animal ecology and has held scientific positions in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. He was co-director of the Tai Monkey Project in Cote d’Ivoire, and the results of his PhD work in 2001 resulted in a Research Conservation Award from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques. Johannes relocated to East Africa in 2005, and worked as a programme manager for the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP), before joining GRASP in 2006. He is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Primate Specialist Group and the IUCN Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group. He has a wide experience in natural resource management (NRM) and assisted GTZ (German Technical Cooperation), IGCP, WWF and UN Environment in designing, supervising and implementing NRM projects. Johannes is a Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) at the University of Queensland, Australia. Johannes has visited many great ape range states in Africa and Asia, and the GRASP great apes photo exhibition “Their Fate is Ours: the Humanity of Great Apes” features his pictures and tours around African great ape range states and European donor countries.

Srishti Srivastava joined the GRASP Secretariat in May 2025 as an intern. She recently completed an MSc in Conservation & Biodiversity at the University of Exeter (Merit), where she honed ecological data analysis skills through her thesis and statistical modelling coursework. As part of her degree, Srishti visited Kenya to study African biodiversity firsthand, gaining practical experience in habitat assessment and small mammal survey techniques. Since October 2024, Srishti has been a Communications Coordinator at Expedition Science, supporting project planning, drafting reports and presentations, and managing social media outreach to connect research with broader audiences. Srishti is passionate about rewilding and human–wildlife coexistence, and outside work she is self-learning QGIS and exploring how data visualization and storytelling can drive environmental advocacy.

Michela Natali joined the GRASP Secretariat in May 2025 as an intern. Michela has a BSc in Biological Sciences, an MSc in Integrative Wildlife Conservation, and is currently pursuing an MSc in Environment, Politics, and Society at University College London. Her work has always centred around wildlife protection, with a particular focus on illicit activities affecting biodiversity. Professionally, Michela has worked across Latin America and East Africa, from managing rehabilitation and release programs in a wildlife sanctuary in Costa Rica, to conducting spatial analysis with Save the Elephants in Kenya. Michela also served as a Biodiversity Technical Advisor for Costa Rica during UNEA-6, SBSTTA-26, and SBI-4. Both her past and current research focuses on wildlife crime: her first thesis examined anthropogenic conflict and its collateral damage on Jaguar populations in Colombia, while her current work explores how the ambition of policy influences illegal wildlife trade in Latin America, using the Jaguar 2030 Roadmap as a case study. Michela is passionate about bridging science, policy, and fieldwork.

Aislinn joined the GRASP secretariat as an intern in September 2025. She is a recent graduate of Oxford Brookes University’s MSc program in Primate Conservation. Her research focused on human-wildlife conflict mitigation, working with farmers in Indonesia to understand the interactions with primates and strategies to reduce crop foraging. Aislinn also spent several years living and learning on Maui, Hawai’i. There, she worked with the Pacific Whale Foundation to educate the public about humpback whale ecology and conservation, as well as with community based non-profit organizations devoted to cultural conservation, environmental education, and environmental protection, including Ecology Project International and Mālama Maui Nui.

Louisa joined the GRASP Secretariat in September 2025 as an intern. She is an early career primatologist who has recently completed her MRes in Primatology and Conservation at Oxford Brookes University, UK. With a background in zoology (BSc) and field experience in primate conservation and research, specialising in great apes through work with orangutans in Sumatra and mountain gorillas in Uganda, her research focuses on the behavioural ecology of great apes and the conservation challenges they face under climate change.