On July 4, Xenabeth Lazaro was one of 15 awardees announced at the MAB International Coordinating Council annual meeting to receive a MAB Young Scientist Award. Her award supports her studies on the behavior of bats in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve in Chile. Xena is a Master’s student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program at the University of Helsinki working on her thesis on the behavior and activity of Patagonian bats.
Born and raised in Florida, she completed her BSc in 2019 at the University of Florida in wildlife ecology, conservation and psychology with a specialization in animal behavior. After graduating, Xena moved to Puerto Williams, Chile, the southernmost town of the planet, where she studied bats in collaboration with a Chilean bat biologist. In her project, Xena seeks to fill knowledge gaps about bat species and their interaction with local communities on Navarino Island to help stakeholders identify habitats to prioritize for bat conservation.
Tune into Xenabeth’s Biosphere Bites talk on September 25th to learn more!
