I am a conservation scientist focused on assessing the social-ecological effectiveness of protected areas, better understanding human-wildlife conflict, and developing monitoring tools and frameworks. I am an Assistant Professor at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, where I study leopards in the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) and eastern Africa (Kenya), snow leopards in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), and lions in southern Africa (Botswana). Since 2007, I have also worked on Persian leopard and Asiatic cheetah conservation in Iran and southwest Asia, including leading the Persian leopard status assessment in its western range (Iran, Iraq, and Turkey). Moreover, I co-assessed the status of the leopard (and the Persian subspecies), caracal, and Afro-Asiatic wildcat for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Finally, I co-led the first IUCN Green List assessment of the Persian leopard.