About Leslie Bienen
Leslie Bienen's recent medical and veterinary projects include: researching and writing about several bat viruses transmissible to humans; writing about SARs; researching bovine tuberculosis transmission to humans; and researching and formulating policy papers about the spread of brucellosis and other zoonotic diseases that cycle between humans, wildlife, and livestock in the Rocky Mountain west. She has recently joined the staff of a new consortium, The Center for Large Landscape Conservation, whose mission is to enhance protection of large-scale ecosystems in western North America. Ms. Bienen was one of the founding investigators of a large-scale, on-going research project started at Tufts University, whose goal is to formulate and implement a national plan of rabies control for Nepal. Nepal has a significant incidence of human, canine, and wildlife rabies.
Leslie Bienen also edits medical and other scientific papers, and writes abstracts of peer-reviewed medical papers for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Web site. She edits and co-writes numerous NIH and NSF grants with other scientists and also writes contracted reports for foundations. Recently, Ms. Bienen's report Australia's Conservation Paradox, coauthored with Dr. Gary Tabor, was used to raise $U.S.10.5 million for Australian conservation.
Leslie Bienen is a regular contributor to Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. She has also published in Orion, Open Spaces, Conservation Magazine, and other places. She has taught at the University of Iowa, at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, and traveled in China, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Africa, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia. She has written about medical and mental health issues affecting refugee women in east Africa, in collaboration with photographer Fazal Sheikh.