Dr. Mimi Kessler first traveled to Eurasia on a high school exchange to Russia in 1993. She has since spent seven cumulative years in southern Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. She has studied several of this region’s languages, and speaks fluent Russian and advanced Khalkha Mongolian. Mimi became interested in Great Bustards during earlier community-based conservation work in northern Mongolia with the Taimen Conservation Fund. She subsequently earned her PhD in biology with a dissertation examining the ecology and conservation of the Great Bustard in Mongolia. She serves as North Eurasian Bustard Coordinator for the IUCN Bustard Specialist Group and is a National Geographic Explorer. She divides her time between Central Asia and Oklahoma, USA.
