Professor Justin O'Riain

Professor Justin O’Riain is a behavioural ecologist with a special interest in understanding and mitigating conservation conflicts in southern Africa. He obtained his PhD at UCT in 1996 on the evolution of sociality in naked mole-rats with a subsequent postdoc on meerkats with the Universities of Cambridge and Paris. Gainful employment took the form a senior lectureship at UCT in 2002 and he is currently a full professor and Director of iCWild. Justin's goal is to grow iCWild into an international brand of interdisciplinary research excellence with both local and global impact in the field of conservation conflicts.

Within the fields of behavioural ecology and conservation biology, Justin continues his long-term work on the proximate and ultimate causes of sociality in mammals while including a strong research emphasis on the importance of behavioural studies in deriving sustainable solutions to mammal species in conflict with humans in southern Africa.

Justin is Academic Advisor to three NGOs (Panthera, Cape Leopard Trust and Save our Seas Foundation) and currently leads projects funded by Forestry South Africa, WWF South Africa, and the National Research Foundation. He is the recipient of the prestigious NRF Presidents Award, UCT Young Fellows Award, and UCTs Distinguised Teacher Award.