Our Work
We create impactful videos, photography, and podcasts in collaboration with nonprofits and foundations dedicated to understanding and protecting apes and primates.
About GLOBIO
Our Passion
We feature one of the world’s largest collections of video, photography and audio of great apes. Images from over three decades in Africa and Asia enables us to tell a plethora of key stories about great ape conservation and survival.
Our mission
GLOBIO uses media to champion primates, elevating awareness and inspiring action to safeguard our planet’s health now and in the future.
Our Vision
GLOBIO envisions a world in which each person understands and acknowledges the interdependence of all life and works to protect the diversity which sustains it.
Our Team
Gerry Ellis
Founder & Director
Gerry’s filming project in 2001, Wild Orphans, inspired the founding of GLOBIO. Under Gerry’s leadership, GLOBIO works with international partners in four critical Focal Regions, across Equatorial Africa and Borneo/Sumatra. GLOBIO focuses on great apes and their habitat to create innovative, locally-driven education solutions to foster conservation and environmental awareness and understanding.
Gerry’s award-winning career as an international wildlife film-maker, photographer, and writer spans three-decades and features work appearing in National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, the New York Times, Ranger Rick, and more. He is the author and/or photographer of more than a dozen books, including two in the highly acclaimed National Geographic Kids Book series.
His current work is featured on the GLOBIO YouTube channel Apes Like Us. He is also host of Talking Apes podcast.
Demelza Bond
Media and Communications Manager
Demelza brings over a decade of experience with international primate protection NGOs to her role as Media & Communications Manager at GLOBIO. Combining her journalism degree with real-world experience from primate sanctuaries in Africa, India, Costa Rica, and Spain, Demelza’s passion for great apes drives her commitment to engaging the public in understanding their plight. Additionally, as Assistant Producer of Talking Apes podcast, she continues to amplify their voices and advocate for their conservation.
Maegan Leavendusky
Outreach Education Coordinator
Maegan is GLOBIO’s Outreach Education Coordinator and Great Ape Conservation Film Project program coordinator. She lives in Kansas, USA with her family. She holds bachelor degrees in Nursing and Anthropology from Washburn University and a Master of Arts in Biology from Miami University. During her graduate studies, Maegan focused on primate conservation and completed field studies in Belize, Borneo, and Brazil. She plans to continue collaborating with NGOs and local communities to improve protection for non-human primates around the world and effect lasting change.
While Maegan loves all primates, gorillas hold a very special place in her heart. In particular, Shufai, a one-armed male Western lowland gorilla living at Ape Action Africa’s primate sanctuary, has overcame pain and suffering to be the powerful, gentle leader that he is. Shufai inspires her to be the voice that protects and conserves those who need saving.
Malia Ramos
Communications Assistant
Meet Malia, GLOBIO’s Communications Assistant! From a background in hospitality, Malia took the plunge back into school during the pandemic, emerging with a BA in cultural anthropology. With a passion for nonprofits, Malia has been a community volunteer for years. A committed vegan and animal enthusiast, she’s thrilled to dive into the fascinating world of great apes. Outside of work, catch Malia on the slopes, in the kitchen, buried in a good book, or dominating the pickleball court!
GLOBIO Board Members
Colburn Shindell
Chair of Board
Colburn is a former secondary school educator and leader who now focuses his time on wildlife conservation and community development projects worldwide. An avid traveler and passionate conservationist, he continues to explore the world on land and under sea. His experience fundraising and leading non-profits compliment his dedication to and love of wildlife. He and his family live in Reno, Nevada.
Todd
Trzcinski
Board Treasurer
Todd is a native of Seattle with a degree from Whitman College and graduate studies in accounting at the University of Washington. He is a licensed CPA and served in several companies, both large corporations and startups, in particular focusing on the high tech service sector. In addition to the Pacific Northwest, he has lived and worked both in Europe and Rwanda and is an avid cyclist and traveler. Todd is currently a resident of New York City, and is consulting to US-based companies doing work in East Africa.
Douglas Gastich
Doug is a technology leader with over 20 years of experience building online education experiences. He believes deeply in the power of story combined with novel interaction to engage and inspire.
Meg Gammage-Tucker PhD, CFRE
For the past 35+ years, Dr. Meg Gammage-Tucker (she/her) has worked in nonprofit
management, organizational leadership, and philanthropy.
Meg’s particular expertise is in board
development and management, strategy, systems, and campaign planning implementation, research, evaluation, and organizational management, along with maximizing the growth of human resource, operational, and financial potential.
Meg has a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Anthropology from Illinois State University and a Master of Science in Museum Studies, a Master of Public Administration, and a Ph.D. in Political Science, Nonprofit Management, and Museum Studies from Texas Tech University.
Meg has worked as a chief executive officer, president, vice president, and director of – and consultant for – educational, cultural, and zoologzical institutions throughout her career.
She has worked in archaeology in the American Midwest and Southwest and in philanthropy, membership, marketing, and management of museums of art, natural history, and culture in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Texas.
While serving as President & CEO of The Rhino Trust, she raised more than $3 million to fund rhino (and related human service support) conservation in Africa and Asia and was responsible for its merger with the International Rhino Foundation, thus reducing administrative cost and
enhancing donor efficiency for both organizations.
Most recently, Meg served as CEO of the National Eagle Center, bringing a stalled capital development project to a successful conclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic to create a multi-channel, multi-facility regional campus on the Mississippi River.
Meg serves as the Founder, CEO & President of Build 4 Impact, Inc., a nonprofit consulting,
management, and exhibition development firm, and also continues her 30+ year career as a faculty member of The Fund Raising School and adjunct faculty member of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy of Indiana University, teaching both in-class and online courses.
She has served as a member and chair of a variety of local, national, and international nonprofit boards and committees.
She currently serves as a member of the Government Relations Committee at
the Zoological Association of America; the Legislative and Fundraising Committees of the Minneapolis Sound Museum; and is a board member of PASA International and GLOBIO, Inc. , two organizations that are working diligently to care for and impact the conservation of primates and apes in Africa and around the world. Meg joined the Wildlife Center of Virginia as President in June 2024.
Mary
Campbell
Mary is a business professional with a B.S. in Business Management from the University of New Hampshire and an MBA from Rivier College. She worked as the Treasury Manager for a commercial division of Lockheed and served as the General Manager at Campbell’s Scottish Highlands Golf Course prior to moving to Washington state in 2007. Mary also serves on the Board of the Feiro Marine Life Center.
An exceptional wildlife photographer, Mary, and her husband Ken, were major image contributors to the success of GLOBIO development of the online children’s encyclopedia GLOSSOPEDIA. She has traveled the world extensively, photographing some of Earth’s most spectacular and rare wildlife, on all seven continents. Mary’s images are donated to nonprofits for use in educational materials and to teach others about our planet’s rich and threatened biodiversity.