Leader Spotlight: Lena Samsonenko

Lena Samsonenko is currently in Tanzania

Many of our readers have traveled and birded with Lena as she has interned or co-led Wildside trips to Alaska, Puerto Rico, Panama, Belize and Mexico. Those who have met Lena know how passionate she is about every aspect of natural history including botany, wilderness survival skills, and, of course, birding. In her early teens, her field journals and artwork won awards from the American Birding Association (ABA), allowing her art to be published nationally.

Born in Russia, Lena came to the USA at age six where she grew up exploring the woods and meadows of New England. She completed her undergraduate degree in Natural Resources at Cornell University, where she was a recipient of the Morris K. Udall Scholarship and a finalist for both the Marshall and Rhodes Scholarships. She attended the University of Connecticut for her Master’s Degree in Cultural Anthropology and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University.

Most recently, Lena was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her proposed study of land-use change and its effect on bird communities in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. She is currently in Tanzania, beginning her research. Lean loves languages and is fluent in her native tongue, Russian, English, of course, and Spanish. It will be interesting to see how well she picks up Swahili, Sukuma, Maasai or any of the many other dialects spoken in Tanzania! You can enjoy her blog “Where My Wanderings Lead Me…” and follow her studies and discoveries first hand.