Jumbos for Jumbos: Tufts Elephant Conservation Alliance

Across continents, elephants struggle to survive and thrive on landscapes increasingly shaped by and for people. With populations already depleted by poaching for the ivory trade, elephants are also confronted by fragmentation and disappearance of their wild habitats. This habitat loss forces elephant families into conflict with farm families who are also trying to extract a living from the earth. The consequences of these conflicts are grave, and sometimes fatal, for both species.

Our Work

Recognizing that elephants are extraordinary animals that serve globally as critical keystone species and locally to embody the spirit of Tufts University, a multi-disciplinary group of faculty members from across the university have formed Jumbos for Jumbos: Tufts Elephant Conservation Alliance (TECA). TECA identifies opportunities to focus the university’s diverse resources to promote trans-disciplinary research, scholarship, outreach, and teaching that will substantially advance elephant conservation. Click here to learn more about our work.

Our Mission

Transdisciplinary approach to elephant conservation with tangible outcomes that will advance elephant conservation as well as educate the university and community at large.

Why Tufts?

Creating environments in which wild elephants can thrive demands an understanding of the complex biophysical, sociocultural, economic, and geopolitical landscapes in which the elephant’s struggle to exist plays out. Tufts University is uniquely positioned to apply its collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and multi-sector approach to successfully address this research challenge. Together, our campuses provide the broad expertise this problem requires with scholars in human and veterinary medicine, wildlife policy, environmental sciences, engineering, public health, diplomacy, conflict studies, urban planning, economics, and epidemiology.

Who We Are

TECA is comprised of a multi-disciplinary group of faculty members from across the university. They are committed to identifying opportunities to focus Tufts’ diverse resources to promote trans-disciplinary research, scholarship, outreach, and teaching that will substantially advance elephant conservation. 

Allen Rutberg, Center for Animals and Public Policy

Ellen McDonald, Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy

Felicia Nutter, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

Zarin Machanda, School of Arts & Sciences

Ellen Weinberg, School of Medicine

John Castellot, Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences

Karen Panetta, School of Engineering

Jack Derby, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine & Gordon Institute

Sean Devendorf, Tufts University